Protecting the Protector
by thegraytigress
Summary: While Steve recovers after his fight with the Winter Soldier, HYDRA sends a team to finish him off. He told Natasha that he trusted her to save his life, and with Sam's help, she will.
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER:** _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** T (for language, violence, adult situations)

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **WARNING: This contains spoilers a plenty for _Captain America: The Winter Soldier._

Every time I think I have exhausted my ideas for the end of _The Winter Soldier_, I find more inspiration. I hope that's a good thing. :-) Anyway, I loved how much Steve took care of Natasha during the movie. So this is a little role reversal, because that scene between the two of them in Sam's house planted some seeds that I don't think were ever really resolved. So here we go. Steve/Natasha with Sam along for the ride.

**PROTECTING THE PROTECTOR**

**1**

"_If it was the other way around and it was down to me to save your life… And you be honest with me. Would you trust me to do it?"  
_"_I would now. And I'm always honest."_

The hospital was quiet. The night shift was filtering in, relieving nurses and staff weary from the day's strenuous events. Doctors were finishing their rounds, dragging their feet as they blearily marched from room to room. Natasha ran into Steve's surgeon as she left his room. She was a middle-aged woman, as thin as a rail with closely cropped gray hair and no make-up which made her look even older and more worn. Doctor Fine had said she was one of the best trauma surgeons in DC, and Natasha truly believed that given she'd saved Steve's life when they'd rushed him in from the Potomac, blood pouring from his stomach and back and leg and beaten nearly to death. "How is he?"

The doctor's eyes were dark with fatigue, and her face was lined with seriousness. "Recovering," she responded. She did manage a bit of a weak grin that did nothing to alleviate Natasha's concern. "Excuse me."

Natasha watched her walk away and then turned back to the hospital room before her. It was dark inside aside from the light over the hospital bed. Steve lay in it, unmoving and sleeping. A thin blanket covered him up to his waist. He was breathing on his own now, at least, his chest rising and falling slowly and evenly. His face was still littered with bruises and scrapes and cuts from his fight with the Winter Soldier yesterday afternoon, but there were already signs of healing, yellowish marks and fading welts. There was an IV affixed to each wrist, delivering fluids, antibiotics, and pain medication in very large doses. A couple of monitors behind him were reporting his vitals, which all looked steady (if not a bit depressed but much, much better than how they had been during surgery and in the ICU last night). It was hard to imagine how badly hurt he had been, that Captain America could _be_ so badly hurt. The memories of the frantic search of the river and the desperate chopper flight to the hospital, her hands covered in red as she struggled to keep the blood in his body, would stay with her a long while. She would compartmentalize, of course. Something told her, as shaken and lost as she felt, it wasn't going to be so easy this time.

But Steve would live. He was out of the woods. He would be okay. She didn't want to admit to herself how much of a relief that was, but it really was.

Sam was slumped beside the bed, half asleep. His face was scraped from the battle with the Insight Carriers as well, and his form was bent with pain and exhaustion. He'd hardly left Steve's side after they'd found him bleeding out and unconscious on the river bank. Sam had been stalwart, undaunted by the very real possibility that Steve could have died, unwavering in the face of their entire world coming down in a flaming hell. Things were simple to him, simple and easy and very black or white. She found that incredibly (maybe stupidly naïve) but it made sense why he and Steve got along so well. Natasha didn't know much about him, other than he'd proven entirely instrumental and reliable and pretty much willing to do anything to help Steve. That made him trustworthy enough for her.

He lifted his chin at her approach and regarded her with dead eyes. Natasha nodded at him. "I've got this for a while," she swore. "Go home. You look like you could use some sleep."

Sam shook his head, turning his gaze back to Steve's unconscious face. "So do you," he commented.

Maybe she did. But she had been trained to go without sleep for as long as necessary. She'd functioned on less. He didn't know her, either, so he had no idea of the things of which she was capable. She didn't need anyone to tell her what she could and could not do. And she could do this. "I've got him." Her voice left nothing to question.

Sam watched her for a moment, seemingly doubtful and suspicious. Truth be told, she'd given him good reason to be. Up until today, she'd been an agent of SHIELD, an assassin and spy whose lies had helped propagate and perpetuate the evil of HYDRA. Maybe her participation in HYDRA's machinations had been unwitting and unwilling, but she had participated nonetheless. There was guilt to be felt from that, guilt and shame and rage, but she wasn't prepared to feel it. Hell, she wasn't even certain she was capable of feeling it.

However, she was finding herself more and more capable of feeling hurt. And she was hurt that he didn't trust her.

She remained unreadable and obstinate beside him, and the awkward moment of him analyzing and judging her finally passed. He sighed and nodded and tenderly raised himself from the molded plastic chair beside Steve's bed. "I… um… Yeah, if anything changes or you need anything…"

"I won't."

"He's gonna be okay, you know. The doctors said he'll be okay." She wasn't sure if he was trying to assure her or if he was looking for her assurance. It was irrelevant. "Well, this is my cell phone number. Just in case." He grabbed a scrap of paper and a pen from the table alongside the hospital bed and scribbled down the number. He handed it to her. "I'll be back in a few hours." With a lingering, worried look at Rogers, he limped out of the room.

She was tempted to throw the paper he'd given her away, crumpling it in her fist. But she didn't, stuffing it into the pocket of her pants. The room suddenly became vacuously quiet. She stood still in the silence, wavering in the shadows for a moment. She was numb but raw at the same time. She was somehow completely different and yet utterly unchanged. Nothing seemed quite real, stretched and distorted and unbelievable. In the last two days, her entire existence had been invalidated, and people she'd once thought to be allies were enemies. Causes she'd once believed were just and straight and true were lies. She was groundless. Nobody to handle her. Nobody to control her. Nobody to guide her or paint the world for her or define good and evil for her. That room seemed so small and dark and she was sinking and suffocating.

What the hell was she doing here, anyway? SHIELD was listing, dying, falling apart. All of its secrets, good and bad and awful, were running rampant. She'd been compromised. She'd been the one to compromise _herself_. She should have been running, seeking a new life, a new cover, before the demons of her past caught up to her. Without SHIELD to protect her, she couldn't hide from the truth. She couldn't be who she had been, _anyone _she had been. And she didn't owe this world anything more than what she'd given it. She'd stopped Justin Hammer and Ivan Vanko. She'd saved New York from the Chitauri with the Avengers. She defeated HYDRA even though it had cost her everything.

She didn't owe anyone _anything_.

No. Even she couldn't believe that.

Steve shifted slightly in his sleep, wincing, his quivering right hand lifting to rest protectively over his stomach where the Winter Soldier had shot him. Natasha snapped from her bitter thoughts and sat in the chair. She took his hand from where he was pressing against the bandages encircling his midsection. "Easy, Cap," she said. All the missions they'd done together for Fury, she'd never seen him so weak, so vulnerable. She'd never seen him in pain. It made her feel weak and vulnerable, too. She wasn't sure when she'd become so pathetically dependent on his protection. He'd saved her life. Today. Yesterday. So many times. "Easy."

He settled back into a deeper sleep. She looked down where her hands were wrapped around his. His hand that was bruised but still so much stronger and larger than hers. She'd never noticed how their hands fit together, how her fingers slipped in between his so nicely. That was probably because they'd never touched like this before.

"I've got you," she said to the silence.

She made herself accept the truth. Holding his hand and keeping some silly vigil so he didn't have to be alone was the least she could do to repay him. She owed him that much.

* * *

Natasha had dozed off. She hadn't meant to, hadn't even realized it in fact, until she came awake with a startled jolt. Her senses were blaring a warning to her that she needed to get up, get out – _move!_ – but there was nothing there. The room was empty. Steve was still peacefully sleeping, breathing calmly through slightly parted lips. Long, thick shadows draped the walls and spread across the floor. Lights from the city beyond sparkled gold and white and yellow through fat droplets of rain lingering on the large window on the opposite side of the room. It was quiet.

But something wasn't right. She'd been in enough life-threatening situations before to know to implicitly trust her instincts; they'd been molded and trained to perceive danger, attuned to the slightest sign that things weren't what they seemed. She was up on her feet, all remnants of sleep gone in a blink and a short breath, and walking silently to the door of Steve's room. Next to the door there was a large window to the hallway covered in blinds and a privacy curtain. She crouched there, pressed against the wall below the window, listening.

It was silent. There was not the murmur of a hushed conversation or the consoling words of a patient's worried family or the frantic shouts of doctors trying to manage a desperate situation. No fingers typing on a keyboard or the chatter of coworkers. No voices over the hospital's PA system. No sound of footsteps or the swish of scrubs or the rattling of carts. No alarms blaring or machines beeping. _Nothing_.

Only Steve's soft breathing and her heart thudding against her sternum.

Natasha's gooseflesh prickled as she remained absolutely still a moment longer, enduring the sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach that something was seriously wrong. She peered out into the hallway through the doorway. It was dark, the fluorescent lights dimmed. A clock on the waiting room wall down the hall proclaimed it was 11:21. Even at this time of night, though, a hospital this size shouldn't be so empty. There was absolutely no activity, as if everyone had suddenly gotten up and left their jobs and posts unattended. The mopped and polished tile floors of the vacant corridors gleamed idly in the meager illumination. The nurse's station was empty. The patient rooms were closed. She strained her neck to glance through the window at the ward's entrance. The double doors were secured.

She cursed softly in Russian, softly closing the door and fumbling for the privacy curtain to pull it as closed. It was foolish and idiotic to think shutting down SHIELD would kill HYDRA. They needed to get out of here. _Now._

Her mind started racing as she glanced around with quick eyes. Sam's bag was still on the floor beside the bed; he'd forgotten to take it with him. Quickly she made her way to it. There was nothing inside of any use, his iPod and a sound dock station and a few books and magazines. As quietly as she could, she dumped the contents to the foot of Steve's bed. Then she ran over to one of the counters in the room and rifled through the drawers. She grabbed bandages and pads and disinfectant and as much gauze as she could carry. There were scissors and scalpels sealed in sterile wrappers. She took those as well, ripping open the little bags, and returned to the bed and stuffed her pilfered supplies in the bag. The scissors she set aside and the scalpels she stuffed into the pouch of her sweater. It wasn't going to be enough, but it was all she could do.

"Rogers," she said as loudly as she dared. He was deeply asleep (hopefully not unconscious) and completely oblivious to the danger they were in. This wasn't good. She glanced frantically to the dark hallway again, quelling her panic and knowing that there wasn't much time. "Steve. Steve!"

He still didn't respond. Because of his enhanced metabolism, they were pumping him full of enough morphine to put down a small elephant. She knuckled his sternum forcefully, hoping the discomfort would get through to him. When that didn't work, she inclined his bed with a press of her thumb to the controls. He groaned during the jostling but still didn't open his eyes. There was no time to do this gently. She grabbed some of the gauze and yanked the tape from the IV on his left wrist, pulling the catheter and needle out without much preamble. Immediately she pressed the gauze to the oozing hole in his skin. Hopefully cutting off his supply of painkillers would rouse him.

It did. His eyelids fluttered and then opened to slits, revealing hazy blue beneath. Then he grimaced and moaned and grabbed blindly for her. She took his trembling hand, praying he was with it enough to not hurt her by squeezing too hard. "You need to focus on me."

Steve was trying. He was clearly in a great deal of pain and seriously disoriented. His tongue wet his lips and he blinked a few times. "… 'tasha?"

She nodded. "Come on. I need to get you out of here." She ripped the blanket away, noting with dismay the thick bandages visible around his naked thigh and poking through the thin fabric of the hospital gown he wore in a disturbingly large number of other places. Time pressed on her, each second that escaped heightening her panic, but she was an expert at quelling fear and remaining calm. This was crazy. He was newly removed from the ICU, hardly recovered at all from his brush with death. Taking him from here was probably going to be torturous for him. But she couldn't make herself imagine what would happen to them both if their enemies found them. And she just didn't know how the hell she was going to move him. He had at least a hundred pounds of muscle and a good six inches on her. She'd never be able to get him up, let alone away from the hospital, unless he helped her.

And he was so badly wounded and in so much pain and so damn out of it that she didn't have much hope for that.

He licked his lips again. "Natasha?"

"You're batting a thousand, Cap," she muttered. She raced around to the other side of the bed and quickly turned off the monitors before removing the pulse oximeter from his index finger. The second IV was the next to be pulled. Steve was shivering and sweating at the same time, squeezing his eyes shut and panting. "Can you walk?"

That seemed a rather stupid question, and his answer didn't matter, at any rate. There was simply no way she could push a stretcher or a wheel chair; if it came to a fight, she would be seriously and disastrously hindered. He needed to walk.

A shadow shifted outside. Natasha drew a short breath at the streak of darkness she saw out of the corner of her eye, and she whirled, ducking slightly next to Steve's bed. On her way down she slammed her hand into the controls for the overhead lights, turning them off completely and dousing the room in blackness. Steve gasped; the bed creaked as his hands clenched around the rails and crushed plastic. "Shh!" she ordered harshly. He was cognizant enough of his surroundings to stifle his next moan, but still the sound of his clenched breathing echoed in the tense silence.

Natasha watched the shadows shifting outside. One. Three. Six. She gritted her teeth. Six of them, armed and walking through the hall, _sauntering_, really. They carried their rifles low or slung over their shoulders. She took that to mean they were not expecting a fight. They didn't know she was here.

That was perhaps the only advantage she had.

That, and the fact that she was Black Widow. Even as sore and exhausted as she was, she could take them.

She waited until the men were all in the hallway, holding her breath and finding that center of calm where instinct guided her and emotion was locked away. A glint to her left near the other chair of the vacant room caught her room. Steve's shield, scuffed and marred from the battle in the fiery inferno of the helicarrier. Somebody had obviously brought it after the rescue crews had fished it out the river earlier that day. She felt a small brush of relief to at least have that, angling herself around to reach for it. Her fingers brushed against the polished vibranium and she got a grip on it before silently bringing it closer. She'd never held it before, and it was much lighter than she anticipated. It felt powerful in her hands and very strange to her, but she slid her forearm through the leather straps all the same. Then she snatched the scissors from the bed and slunk across the floor, staying away from the places where illumination shining in from the city outside might betray her. She returned to the wall below the window, angling herself up so as to have a view of the intruders. "You three, stay out here," a man gruffly ordered. She knew that voice. It was Rollins, one of Rumlow's lackeys from the STRIKE Team.

She could see him pull a handgun from his holster. There was the familiar metallic _clink_ of the slide being pulled as the weapon was loaded. The silver knob of the door slowly turned. She gripped the scissors tighter and looked to the hospital bed. Steve was struggling to sit up, turned slightly on his side, his hand wrapped around the grips of the rail for leverage. She shook her head, hoping he would see her, praying he would remain still and quiet. The darkness was about their only ally at this point; she didn't think Rollins could see well enough into the room to take aim from the doorway. That would mean he would have to step inside and turn on the light.

And he did.

Brightness burst through the room. Natasha moved fast. She sprung from her hiding place, yanking the door open the rest of the way. That surprised Rollins, and he stumbled into her. She slashed with the scissors and caught the ex-SHIELD agent right across the face. With a dull hum, Steve's shield rammed into his chest. Shrieking, Rollins fell back, and it was a simple matter of disarming him. Natasha tossed the scissors like a knife, and they bit into the throat of one of the other men. She slammed the door, crushing Rollins' fingers where they grasped the jamb. Repeatedly she rammed it into his hand until he was forced to yet go, howling. She locked the door shut.

It didn't take long for them to retaliate. Bullets slammed into the door, fired from automatic weapons that could pierce almost anything, so the flimsy wood didn't stand much of chance. A few rounds made it through, driving into the tiled floor. Natasha scooped up the fallen handgun as she somersaulted toward the bed. Staying low, she grabbed Steve by the arm and pulled as hard and fast as she could. They both went down to the floor, tangled up in each other. Steve screamed in agony as he landed on his injured leg, but it was barely audible over the crackle of gunfire and the doors and walls and floor exploding around them. Some of the light fixtures were struck as bullets ricocheted haphazardly. The one over the bed was knocked from its fastenings and swung as it dangled, sending the room into a dizzying mess of shadows and flashing illumination. Drywall and plaster coated them in a choking dust. The medical equipment was torn to shreds.

Natasha could barely breathe, sweat stinging her eyes, as the room was destroyed around them. She pulled Steve closer to the wall, keeping them as flat to the floor as possible to protect them and planting his shield between them and the gunfire. Surviving the harrowing seconds was all they could do. Finally there was a furious shout and the gunfire abruptly ceased. The moment of reprieve was not long-lasting, however, as the door, peppered with bullet holes, was kicked. It banged and creaked with the impact. Natasha felt Steve struggle to push himself up behind her, shaking wildly. But there was no time to tell him to stay down or even make sure he was okay because the door gave way.

She quickly took aim and pulled the trigger of her gun, and one of the men fell back. _Two down. _She couldn't kill the next assailant before he stepped inside and shot at them. The floor and walls and bed were punctured further. The thunder of gunfire and bullets gouging into surfaces was so loud that it was all she could hear. A few clanged uselessly against the shield, but the force of the hits vibrated her arms and drove her back. She gritted her teeth and tried to remain still despite how the shots shook her, praying she was providing enough cover to keep Steve safe. One of the shots obviously reflected from the shield in a fortunate direction, for the soldier unloading his rifle on them yelped and stumbled, having shot himself in his own leg. She moved without thinking. Across the destroyed floor she leapt, smacking the shield with as much strength as she could muster into the man's scruffy, dirty face. He went down with a spray from blood from a broken nose. Natasha pivoted, swinging the handgun around and pointing it at another of the STRIKE agents. She squeezed the trigger and he went down. _Four down._

But Rollins was on her, his gashed face monstrous and furious as he tackled her. Natasha fell back, crushed under his weight. The air rushed from her lungs as he pummeled her, and the gun skittered from her suddenly limp and numb fingers. He raised his fist to punch her again, but she swung the shield upward and caught him on the side of the head. Rollins gasped and fell to the side, releasing her battered chest enough so she could suck in a desperate breath. She barely got her feet beneath her before the last soldier was upon her, sweeping his leg at her. She easily grabbed his boot, stopping the kick mid-arc, and gave a vicious twist. The man's foot cracked and he cried out in pain and lost his balance, tumbling to the floor. He wrenched his rifle around as he fell and yanked on the trigger. Pain burst through her arm. Frantically she put Steve's shield in front of her head and chest as bullets sprayed at her. The _clang clang clang_ was violent and forceful, knocking her back enough that she lost her footing and ended up down on one knee.

The rifle ran out. The STRIKE agent righted himself, staggering back and limping, his eyes flashing furiously. He tossed the useless gun aside and reached for the handgun in his holster. Natasha sprung forward, planting the shield on the floor and ramming both sets of knuckles into it for support as she rolled into a handstand. Her legs wrapped around the man's neck. Baring her teeth with the strain, she pulled him forward, curling back and yanking him head over heels. He went down with a yelp that was quickly silenced when, with a twist of her hips, she broke his neck. She whirled free and sprung back onto her feet.

"Stop!" Natasha stiffened. "Turn around!" She stood still, mind racing frantically. She slid her hand slowly into the front pouch of her sweater and thumbed the cap off one of the scalpels. "Turn around or I blow his goddamn brains out!"

Slowly she did, aching with pain and frustration and fear. Rollins had gotten to Steve where he had fallen beside the now destroyed hospital bed. The bastard had pulled Steve up to kneel helplessly, _submissively_, at his feet. His entire body was trembling so bad that Rollins' fist in his hair was the only thing keeping him upright. Blood was covering his legs and the torn and filthy hospital gown. He didn't look entirely conscious. He was in agony.

And the muzzle of Rollins' gun was pressed menacingly to his temple. Rollins' eyes flashed in sadistic wrath, his face more blood and gore than skin. "The Winter Soldier sure did a number on you, Rogers. But still you keep getting back up. I gotta say it's pissing me off." He yanked on Steve's hair. "But I don't think you could survive a bullet to the head. What do you think? Huh? How about you, Romanoff? Do you think the Cap's invincible?" Steve only groaned as Rollins shook him and jabbed the gun harder into his skin. "Let's find out."

Natasha threw the scalpel with deadly precision, and the small blade embedded itself deeply into Rollins' hand that held the gun. He gasped, and she was on him in the split second he spent reeling. She grabbed the gun, twisting his damaged hand and ramming him back into the remains of the wall behind the bed. His head struck with enough force to crack the wall and he staggered. Another scalpel came out of her sweater as he sunk, dazed. She drove it into his wrist alongside the first, severing arteries and veins, and then he dropped the gun, crying.

She picked it up out of the pieces of drywall and wreckage on the floor and pointed it at his head. He was panting, eyes teary and frantic and wild. "HYDRA will kill him." He spat a bloody mouthful to the floor. "HYDRA will kill all of you. This isn't the end," he warned.

"It is for you." She pulled the trigger and finished him.

The hospital was silent again. Natasha dispassionately watched as the body slumped to the floor. She stood over him, breathing heavily, heart pounding. Slowly she lowered the gun. _Bastard._

Then she turned, dropping to her knees beside Steve where he laid on the destroyed floor on his side. "Steve," she said worriedly. There was a lot of blood, but a quick check of him revealed that it wasn't from any new injuries. At least she didn't think so. "Steve? Talk to me! Are you hurt?"

He moaned, curling into himself as though that could protect him from the pain. She pushed the hospital gown away and saw fresh blood on the bandage around his leg. Fresh blood on his belly. He'd torn his stitches. She laid her hand to his forehead and found his skin cold and clammy. He didn't seem to be able to focus. He was hurting too much.

There was a crackle. Static over a radio. A walkie talkie in the belt of one of the dead men. "Rollins, status? Status?" Natasha stared at it for a moment, her blood going cold again and that miserable weight falling into her stomach again. _Shit._ If nobody answered… "Status!"

"Damn it," she whispered. She left Steve's side, dropping his shield next to him and running to the door. Light feet darted around the corpses, and she lithely crouched to grab another gun. She leaned against the broken door jamb and glanced down the hallway. It was dark and empty. Downright peaceful, if not for the carnage littering the floor outside Steve's room. The doors were still locked. _What the hell?_ How was HYDRA still – _no, it doesn't matter._ They were still coming. They'd discover the job – their mission to finish off Captain America – wasn't done. And they would be back.

How the hell was she going to get him out of here?

And where were they going to go?

One thing at a time. She stuffed one of the guns into the waist of her pants and headed back to Steve. Sam's bag was somehow still intact beside the remains of the bed, and she grabbed it from the debris and slung it across her chest. "We need to get out of here," she said. She knelt next to him, relieved to find his eyes open and looking at her. "Can you stand? Are you hurt?"

"Natasha… Leave me…"

Rage and fear broke free from her restraint. She was terrified of even the thought, though she'd never hesitated to run before when she'd needed to. But she could never leave him, and she damn well knew it. "Get up," she ordered. "Get your arm around me." She helped him get his left arm around her shoulders. Then she wrapped her arm around his waist. Their first attempt to get him up ended with Steve back on the floor, gasping, his eyes filled with tears. There was no time for giving up. "Come on," she snapped. _"Get up!"_

He planted his other hand on the floor and pushed himself up with all of his strength. Natasha pulled as well, and they were standing. She reached down, not letting go of him for a second, and snatched up his shield. "Gotta hand it to you," she gasped as she helped him walk toward the window. Holy hell he was heavy. "This shield of yours is surprisingly bad ass."

Steve groaned in response, stumbling with his feet barely beneath him. To his credit he was trying to keep his weight off of her as much as he could, but it wasn't much. She got him over to the wall adjacent to the window. The radio was crackling again, filled with frantic, angry voices relaying orders and dispatching more soldiers. There was no way to go out via the locked doors; even if she could get them open, that was certainly the direction from which reinforcements would come. And hiding here wasn't an option; she had no idea how many HYDRA members were still in DC, seeking their revenge on Captain America. Seeking to finish what the Winter Soldier had started. The next round of attackers would be more on alert and more difficult to defeat. They would be trapped in the ward with no easy means of escape, and she could only fend them off for so long without Steve's help.

That left but one option. Swallowing through a dry throat, Natasha looked out the window. The pane was coated in rain, the lights of the DC skyline blurry through the tiny droplets of water. Because the sky was overcast, it was very dark, but she could see the roof of the building that connected the two towers of the hospital. They could jump, run across the roof, and hopefully get to the other section of the hospital where they maybe had a chance to escape.

She supposed that there was hope at all was a small stroke of good luck. But she had to get Steve down there when he could barely walk, much less run. Panic gnawed at her, but she refused to acknowledge it, formulating a hasty plan. She angled Steve away from the window as much as possible and fired two shots from the handgun into it. Cracks spread radially from the holes, weakening the large pane. She leaned him against the wall, turning him away from it to protect his face, and then hopped up onto the radiator that ran the length of the window. One smash of his shield to the pane completely shattered it.

Natasha kicked the largest pieces of glass down from the radiator as she leaned over the edge. A fine, misty drizzle, one that was cold with the spring night, coated her instantly. The fall wasn't very far, maybe fifteen feet, and for Captain America, who jumped out of planes without parachutes and threw himself off of buildings without so much as a second thought, it was hardly anything. But for Steve Rogers, who had been shot four times and stabbed less than forty-eight hours ago by the world's deadliest assassin, it might as well have been infinite.

She slid down from the radiator. Steve had slumped against the wall, smearing blood on it. "Oh, no, you don't," she said, getting over to him, frantic to keep him conscious. If he went down now, she knew she wouldn't be able to get him back up. "Come on. We need to jump." He didn't answer, _whimpering_, holding his midsection. Natasha felt panic pulse through her. She reached for his face, taking it between her hands, forcing his half-lidded eyes to see her. She allowed no doubt or fear to poison her strength. And she looked into his eyes and held him tenderly. "You told me before that you trusted me to save your life." His cheeks glistened wetly with tears. He was obviously in excruciating pain, but she wouldn't let him succumb to it. "I need you to trust me now."

That got through to him. He drew a halting breath into damaged lungs and nodded. She didn't want to acknowledge how much it hurt, how much it scared her, that he was so low. On all the missions they had worked together, he had always been so strong. He never got hurt. He was never uncertain, never frightened or dependent on anything or anyone. Now he couldn't even stand straight without her. That sort of reliance was terrifying.

He reached up and grabbed her hand from his face. "I trust you," he whispered.

She tugged him away from the wall, ignoring his rough cry of pain, and pulled him to the radiator. In one smooth motion she climbed atop it. She turned to help him up. "We're on the sixth floor," came an angry voice over the radio. "Damn it, Rollins, talk to us… Is Black Widow dead?"

Steve howled again, trying to get the leg that had been shot up onto the radiator. It was only about three feet tall, but, again, in his state it might as well have been a thousand. Natasha hooked both her hands under his arms and pulled with all her strength. He grabbed the radiator, crushing and bending metal under his grip as he struggled to lift his leaden body. After an eternity of trying, he made it up there.

The chilly rain blew inside the gaping hole into the hospital room. Steve stood beside her, white as a ghost. "Can you do this?" she asked, holding his hand tightly as he looked down to the gravelly roof below them and wavered, obviously dizzy and weak.

Even as hurt and vulnerable as he was, he was still Captain America. "Yeah."

Behind them there was the scuffle of boots and the shouting of men. Natasha jumped, pulling Steve with her. They fell for what felt to be forever through the cold, wet air.

Then they struck the roof below. The impact was brutal. Natasha staggered, yanked down by Steve's weight as his legs crumpled and completely failed him. He gave a loud, hoarse scream, his free hand slamming into the gravel as he pitched forward, and only her vehement grip on his other arm kept him from falling flat on his face. She gritted her teeth, fighting her absolute hardest to stay upright, to keep him together. The pain must have been awful because he nearly blacked out, barely breathing as the agony cruelly tortured him. "Up, Steve," she breathlessly demanded. Their attackers surely would have heard his scream. They needed to go. _Now. _"Steve!" He only moaned, unable to catch his breath, collapsing in on himself. _"Up!"_

Her desperate cry pierced his misery. He coughed around a sob, pushing himself to his feet through the strength of his will and her determination alone. Natasha held his hand with all her strength and pulled him along the darkened roof as fast as he could limp and stumble. The icy rain soaked them thoroughly, but she didn't let that or anything else slow them down. She glanced over her shoulder as the dark shadows of more men rushed inside the room. She prayed that the black night was covering their escape.

"Nat." Steve stopped, his knees bending underneath him. "I – I can't. Sorry. I–"

He wasn't the type who needed support, and she wasn't the type to give it. But she did whole-heartedly. "Yes, you can." There was not a speck of doubt in her voice. She tugged him insistently, horrified of how exposed they were, but even more horrified that he was falling and shivering and fading before her very eyes. "Stay with me, Steve. I've got you."

He looked up into her eyes again, lost and tormented and not quite _there_. But he nodded and somehow got himself up again with a ragged sob. She held tight to his hand, leading him across the rooftop in search of safety. No matter how many times he stumbled, she didn't let go. And she wouldn't. She was going to get him out of this, no matter what.

He trusted her to save his life.

And that was exactly what she was going to do.


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER:** _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** T (for language, violence, adult situations)

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Wow. A _huge_ heartfelt thanks to all of you reviewing and alerting. Enjoy! Let's see if Natasha can get them out of this… ;-)

**PROTECTING THE PROTECTOR**

**2**

_"The truth is a matter of circumstance. It's not all things to all people all the time. And neither am I."  
__"That's a tough way to live."  
_"_It's a good way not to die, though."_

Natasha rammed her elbow into the glass above the doorknob. It broke easily enough, and she jabbed her hand through the hole to grab the lock. With a twist, it came open. Then she ushered Steve inside. They were in some sort of storeroom. Shelves full of hospital supplies lined the four walls, stocked with bedding and cleaners and wound dressings and gowns. Her eyes glanced over the racks, spotting clean piles of scrubs and bandages and pads and towels. There were syringes and tubes and other medical paraphernalia whose uses she didn't know. In the far left corner, there was a door to another room. And the small area was thankfully empty.

She took a moment to release a slow sigh of relief. Since they'd crossed the roof and found a fire escape door in the opposite tower that Steve had forced open, they'd gone mercifully unnoticed. It was a miracle, really, and something she knew wouldn't last. They'd managed to slip undetected back inside the hospital, and she'd led him, dripping water and blood, to the stairwell as quickly as possible. There was nothing she could do to cover their tracks; even if she could mop up the mess behind them, there was no time. Going down the stairs to the ground floor was an excruciatingly slow process. Steve was exhausted and clumsy, and he had been shaking so bad that holding on to him was nearly dizzying. Each step had been a difficult test of balance and endurance and patience. But they had made it. And from there, it had been a matter of sneaking (which was laughable, given she was pulling the sodden, bleeding, unmistakable form of Captain America behind her) through the hospital's winding halls toward the ER. A few nurses and doctors had seen them, but they'd wisely kept their eyes nervously averted and their mouths shut.

And that had led them here. This was as good a place to hide as any, and maybe she could find things they could use. She debated stopping at all, but Steve was hardly conscious, shivering violently and cold and soaked to the core, and she couldn't take care of him like this. He needed to rest, if only for a moment. The flight from his hospital room and the effort he'd expended getting that fire escape door open had exhausted him. And, as much as she was loath to admit this to herself, she knew she needed help. There was no telling how many more HYDRA agents were in the hospital or lurking in the surrounding area. If it came down to another fight, she couldn't take on slew of black ops specialists with Steve unable to defend himself.

She locked the door behind them, not daring to switch on the light. "Here," she whispered breathlessly, helping Steve limp toward one of the racks. She leaned him against it and frantically reached for a pile of folded towels to their left. Next to that was a stack of scrubs, and she went through them rapidly, throwing sets that were too small to the floor. Finally she produced what she thought were the largest available.

He couldn't stop shivering. Water dripped down his face, his expression permanently locked into an intense grimace. She dropped Sam's bag and his shield quietly to the floor. "You're freezing. Let's get this off," she said, grabbing the wet hospital gown. She lifted it up (trying her damnedest not to notice that he was naked underneath it), but he couldn't raise his arms high enough to get it over his head and he was too tall for her to reach. She supposed she could have taken the time to undo the ties in the back, but he was shivering so badly that getting that cold, wet thing off of him and warming him up was too pressing to be delayed. She reached inside her sweater pouch and grabbed another of the scalpels, flipping the cap off before cutting into the thin material.

He grunted, staring miserably into the shadows as she worked. "You – you know, normally you buy… you buy a guy dinner before…"

With his teeth chattering and his voice so pinched in pain, he just sounded pathetic. "Hilarious," she said. "And let me know when any of this starts being normal." She ripped the gown away. The horrors of his injuries were exposed and undeniable before her eyes. Inflamed and swollen welts covered almost every inch of his chest. There were cuts and scrapes everywhere, and a serious stab wound in his shoulder that had been stitched shut looked angry and aggravated. The bandage over his stomach where he'd been shot was soaked through with rain and blood. The bruising on his abdomen seemed even more severe than what covered his torso, signaling deep internal damage, and it curled around his back and down his flanks to his thighs. She'd known how badly he'd been injured stopping the Winter Soldier. She'd stood stiffly beside Hill and Wilson and Fury as the surgeons had explained Steve's condition after barely managing to save his life. Seeing it like this, unmasked and vulnerable, made her heart ache.

She swallowed, feeling sick and angry. At least there didn't seem to be any new injuries; she hadn't had a chance to assure herself of that until now. She was afraid to touch him, but she did, laying a hand carefully to his gasping chest. His skin was like ice. His heart was straining beneath her palm. "Sorry." His soft murmur drew her attention to his face. His eyes were closed as he shivered. "Sorry for… for putting you through–"

"Don't," she warned. She didn't think she could stand to hear him apologize for anything right then, especially for things out of his control. She hated that he was so damn self-sacrificing sometimes. He didn't do it for the attention or for the accolades or because he thought he was better or for _any_ reason other than that was just who he was. He saved people, no matter what it cost him. He did what was right, no matter how much it hurt. Steve Rogers was Captain America, and they'd picked him for a reason. That was intimidating, to be with someone so honest and noble. It was even more so to her because she thrived in lies and manipulation and power. There was something inherently selfish in what she did, and everything he did, everything he was, was strictly selfless.

He groaned. "Your arm…"

"It's nothing." She grabbed a towel and handed it to him. He fumbled with it before getting it unfolded and wrapping it around his waist. She took another and knelt in front of him and wiped the water and blood that was rolling down his legs. She worked quickly, trying not to feel, to bury everything down where it couldn't distract her or hurt her. She unwound the wet bandage from his leg. The wound was in the back of his thigh. She took another sterile pad and placed it over it, not spending more than a moment glancing at the huge red and purple and blue area marring his skin. Gauze followed, which she wound around his leg as rapidly and tightly as she could even as he moaned again and leaned into her shoulder for support.

The sopping mess around his stomach was next. This was the worst of the dressings, the most saturated with water and blood. She tried to be fast and gentle as she peeled and pulled the bandages away. The hole in his body was disturbingly large, even with the stitches around it. Quite a few of them were torn, weeping blood. She quickly covered it, trying not to remember how much it _hurt_ to be shot by the Winter Soldier. She wondered if she should be concerned about exposure. She knew he couldn't get sick, that the serum afforded him unbelievable endurance and resilience to injuries and infection, but that was under normal circumstances, not after already suffering multiple gunshot wounds and nearly drowning. The best she could do was change the soiled dressing and pray, at least until they got out of this mess. "Hold this," she softly directed, guiding his free hand to press the pad over his abdomen. She quickly taped the bandage in place with the surgical tape she'd stolen. Seeing it was fairly well secured, she wrapped more gauze around it, as much as she could, for protection.

Steve was swaying above her, barely staying on his feet. She was afraid if she didn't hurry, he was going to topple over. She grabbed the pants of the scrubs and helped him dress. Then, as carefully and gently as she could, she toweled his chest and arms dry, trying her best to avoid his innumerable injuries and worried about how cold his skin was and how badly he was shaking. She wiped the water from his hair, and then she felt his pulse and found it fast. Immediately she thought about hypothermia. Again that normally wouldn't have been an issue, but he was already in really bad shape without the long minutes they had spent running in the frigid rain.

She unzipped her own wet sweater, dumping it to the floor. Her black tank followed. She took another of the towels before sliding her arms around him, wrapping him tightly into her embrace and the towel around them both. He was stiff and hesitant for only a moment before relaxing into her warmth, his shaking arms slipping around her waist as she reached up and wove her hand through his damp hair and guided his head down to her shoulder. He sighed against her in relief. "Just for a minute," she murmured, more to herself than to him. Weariness pounded into her aching bones and battered skin and brutalized heart. This had all been so much. The _Lemurian Star_. Losing Fury. Camp Lehigh and the missile and the long night they had spent running for their lives. The Winter Soldier on the causeway and the bullet in her shoulder. The battle over the Potomac. Everything had come loose, and in that moment it all caught up to her. She was shaking, too, cold and lost and afraid. She'd never been so scared, not so much of dying but of having every inch of her lies exposed for what they were. She didn't know who she was without her lies. She was afraid she wasn't anyone.

And she'd been terrified of losing him. The truth might have been relative, a changing, fluid thing she could manipulate to her own ends, but this was hard and fast and unalterable. She needed him.

Her hands swept over the smooth skin of his back, feeling his muscles relax further under her soothing touch. She'd never been this close to him, this intimate, and it was like a balm to her abused body and mind. She closed her burning eyes. Her warmth eased him, and he sagged into her. She could feel the rapid flutter of his heart slowing against her chest, and hopefully his pain was lessened. Hers was.

The moment went on too long. The fleeting seconds were draining away. All of the danger and darkness was still there, and hiding here, staying with him like this, wouldn't save them. She needed to move and be strong and brave. But she couldn't bear to let him go. "Just another minute."

_Don't let him go._

The nagging voice of reason eventually cut through the silence in her heart. She opened her eyes, knowing only a few minutes had passed but hating each of them for abandoning her and herself for letting them slip away. Ugly, frantic energy jolted through her body, and she pulled away from him. Steve blinked blearily, like he couldn't focus. At least now he wasn't shivering so much. She took his face in her hands, sweeping her thumbs tenderly across his bruised cheeks, looking into his dazed eyes. It was frightening to see him like this. Two days ago, he'd been strong and powerful and determined. He'd protected everyone. He'd protected her even if he hadn't entirely trusted her. She felt guilty, even if what had happened to him wasn't her fault. She wanted to say so much, but when it came to it, there were no words.

And the pain came back. His breath grew rougher and more ragged against her. Tenderly she helped him sit on the floor. His lucidity seemed to be waning again. She knelt in front of him, shoving her emotions back down and crushing her vulnerabilities under a cool, hard exterior. His eyelids were closing, like he wanted to sleep, but his body was tense and that agonized look had returned to his face. "You with me?" she asked.

"It hurts," he whispered.

"I know." She grabbed the top of the scrubs. "We need to get you dressed and then I'll see… Steve? Don't pass out on me now." She put his head through the scrubs and then his arms into the sleeves. His teeth jammed into his lower lip when the motion jostled his injuries, unable to stifle a desperate moan. She ignored it all, pulling the fabric down, covering the new bandages and the multitude of wounds. She took a few more of the towels and laid them over him. "Steve. Wake up. I need you with me."

She grabbed his chin and lifted it. Half-lidded eyes wet with tears barely focused on her. "I'm gonna go look around and find a way out of here." She held his gaze firmly, as if that could ground him in the here and now. She prayed it would as she reached behind her back into the waist band of her pants and pulled out the other gun. She grabbed his hand and wrapped his fingers around it. "I want you to stay here and stay awake and shoot anyone who tries to come in that door."

She didn't wait for him to acknowledge that, standing and grabbing another set of scrubs. She yanked the top over her head. These lost minutes suddenly seemed a mistake; they would need to move fast if they wanted to escape. Undoubtedly the HYDRA agents still roaming the hospital would eventually find them here, and she didn't think they would hesitate in shooting up a busy emergency room to kill them both. Quickly she ran to the other door and found it led to an office of some sort. There was a computer and a phone on a desk and a few locked cabinets and a refrigerator secured by a keypad. She could hardly believe her good fortune.

Disabling the card reader on the cabinet was easy enough; her years with SHIELD had taught her a thing or two about overriding and overcoming security. She yanked opened the door and nearly wept in relief at array of vials of drugs and medicine. Morphine. Epinephrine. Sedatives. Antibiotics. She gathered as much as could into a bin she found atop the refrigerator. Then she leaned over the desk, fishing that scrap of paper out of her pants. It was a risk to use the phone, but there was no other choice. Steve was too hurt. She'd never get him away from there otherwise.

A moment later the phone was ringing on the other end. _Come on. Pick up. Please…_

"Hello?" came a muffled and strained voice.

"Sam?"

"Natasha," Sam gasped. "Oh, thank God." His voice was rough and pained and tense with panic. That dark, taut ache returned to her chest. "Are you alright?"

"No," she answered matter-of-factly, trying to keep her voice free of terror. "Are you?"

He gave a short breath. "They were at my house. Barely got the hell out of there." Natasha closed her eyes, weary and beaten and wondering if this nightmare was ever going to end. Even thinking for a moment that they had won had proven completely premature. Project: Insight might have been destroyed, but HYDRA was undefeatable. "Are you and Steve okay?"

"We're trapped in the hospital. They came to kill him," she hastily explained. "We need help."

Sam cursed softly. "How many are there?"

"I don't know. Sam–"

"Rear entrance in fifteen minutes. Can you make it there?"

She didn't know. She would have to. "Yes."

"Just keep Steve safe. I'm coming for you." And the line went dead.

Natasha set the phone down on the cradle and glanced at the clock in on the desk. It was 12:02. Fifteen minutes. She had no idea if there was a clear path from where they were to the rear of the hospital. She looked up on the wall where an emergency evacuation map of the hospital was hung. A red line indicating the fastest route was drawn through the floor plan, and it wanted them to head out the front of the emergency room. That was too dangerous; it would certainly be watched and crowded, and the thought of a frantic escape through screaming civilians caught in the crossfire was distressing. To get to the back, they would need to pass through the ER and go down a few corridors past doctor's offices and administrative areas and conference rooms. If their assailants were elsewhere, it would only take a matter of minutes to reach the other side of the ground floor. If not…

There was no way to know, just as there was no way to be certain if they were safer tucked in this storeroom than they would be outside. Natasha hated not knowing. She despised uncertainty and doubt and blind choices. She could and had made them many times in the past, but never when someone else's life hung in the balance. She wavered for a long moment, battling her worries and fears, battling the pain from where the bullet had grazed her arm and the soreness from where the Winter Soldier had shot her and the throbbing ache all over her body. _Get Steve out. Keep him safe. Get him out. Don't let him go._

Standing still was abruptly repulsive. She charged back into the storeroom. Steve sat where she had left him, braced against the shelves behind him, his hand limply holding the gun in his lap with his finger poised on the trigger. He was still shaking, curled in on himself, panting harshly. She reached his side, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Sam is coming," she said when he turned to look at her. "We need to go."

He didn't seem to comprehend that. She stood and desperately searched the racks for syringes. She found a few and returned to his side, pulling one from its wrapper. In the meager light she managed to find a vial of morphine in the bin she'd stolen, and she loaded the syringe with as much as it could take. She knew morphine would make him sleepy, but the sight of him in so much pain and hardly able to breathe and think, let alone function, was devastating. And perhaps some relief would grant him a few minutes of clarity and strength, which they would desperately need if they were going to get out of this. She pulled the towels away and jabbed the needle in his leg. He jerked and closed his eyes, trying to breathe. "If we stay here, they will find us and they will kill us. Understand?"

Steve winced, though whether from the pain or her blunt words she couldn't say. "I can't ask you to…" He didn't finish, the gun slipping from his lap and clattering uselessly to the floor as he tried harder to curl into himself.

"You're not. Now we need to go." She stuck the needle back in the vial and refilled it before giving him another dose. Then she tossed the used syringe to the side and slipped the vials of medicine and new syringes into Sam's bag. She donned it again and grabbed his shield. "We're going to get out of this," she promised, lifting the gun from the floor and sticking it back in her pants under the scrubs. There could be no pain or fear. Not hers and not his. She crouched in front of him and forcefully slid an arm behind his shoulders. "So on your feet, soldier."

Steve sucked in a deep breath, clearly trying to center himself. She wasn't sure if he was doing it for her or for himself, but she didn't care. Whatever got him up and moving. Whatever it took. He pushed himself up, his leg failing instantly, but she had him. She ground her teeth together and fisted the scrubs he wore and pulled as hard as she could. The rack behind them rattled and shook as he used it for support, but somehow everything stayed upright, including the both of them. He grabbed her arms and leaned heavily into her, inadvertently bruising her with his unrestrained strength. "We're going to get out of this." Her proclamation sounded thunderous in the silence. "We need to go through the ER and out the back."

He grunted. The morphine was already doing the trick. His eyes were clearing with each blink, his vise-like grip on her a little less crushing. But he was still hunched and shivering. "Sounds easy enough," he gasped.

She could have laughed at that. She slid his right arm through the straps of his shield and folded his freezing fingers over the grips. At the very least, if he kept his arm wrapped around his damaged midsection, the shield could protect him. "Like everything else has been. Come on."

They stumbled and limped out of the small sanctuary. Natasha winced for a moment in the bright, fluorescent light of the hallway, struggling to remember which way to go. The ER was in the main building that connected the two towers. She went left, keeping her right arm around Steve's waist and his arm over her shoulders. They had no hope of hiding who they were or what they were doing, so they needed to move fast. She followed the red signs to the ER, forcing Steve to keep up with her, ignoring his fast-paced gasping against her ear and the pallor of his face. She glanced down a hallway to the left and saw a group of men garbed in black and immediately recoiled, backpedaling to get behind the corner of the intersection. She pushed Steve with her and prayed they hadn't been seen. A loud voice over a walkie-talkie echoed down the corridor. "Call out reports."

"Nothing on sixth."

"Fifth and fourth clear."

"Nothing."

"Damn it," answered one of the men in the hallway. Natasha pressed Steve closer to the wall, holding her breath and her body very still. Steve was standing as stiffly as he could beside her, his face locked in a vicious grimace and breathing heavily through his nose. "Perimeter, what's your status?"

"They haven't come through."

"This is bullshit. Rogers is beat to hell. They couldn't have gotten far."

_So much for this being easy,_ Natasha thought angrily. She untangled her arm from Steve and clenched the other gun in her hands, peering around the corner. The walkie talkie crackled again. "There's blood in the northwest stairwell." Her heart thudded heavily in panicked frustration. "Leading down to the ground floor."

"Everyone down here. Spread out. Find them!"

Natasha leaned back against the wall. Thankfully the group of soldiers went the other way, their boots thundering down the hall. This was bad. They had no chance of avoiding the HYDRA agents now, not with all of them converging on the ground floor. And they had obviously formed some sort of perimeter around the hospital. Even if they could get out, they would have to pass through that.

Sam was coming straight into a trap.

She couldn't worry about that now. Once the soldiers were gone, she pulled Steve away from the wall. "This isn't good," she softly told him.

He swallowed thickly and nodded. His face was bathed in sweat, but he was still shivering. "Yeah."

"Ready?"

He looked resigned, but nodded again. She hoped he could walk well enough on his own because she really couldn't afford to have her range of action hindered by supporting him. She linked her free hand through his and led him down the hallway as fast as he could manage. They ran in silence, not daring to slow or stop or breathe or even think.

Ahead there was another T-intersection, the signs affixed to the wall directing them right. But before they could make the turn, Natasha heard boots pounding in the hallway to their left. She moved without thinking, spotting a door to a patient room just a step ahead at the end of the hall. She grabbed the knob and turned it and yanked Steve inside. She barely got him in and the door shut before angry voices filled the air.

She dragged Steve down to the floor with her, clamping a hand over his mouth to silence his hoarse cry and holding him to her chest. Like all the other doors, this one had a window built into it, and another large window was adjacent to it. Natasha held herself and Steve as still as she could. Then she realized they weren't alone. A pair of wide young eyes watched them from the hospital bed. It was a girl, and her gaze darted to Steve's shield and then back to Natasha's face. Natasha winced and shook her head slightly, holding a forefinger before her lips. The girl was hesitant a moment, her eyes terrified eyes filling with tears, but she nodded.

It was silent. Footsteps thudded on the floor outside. She heard a door open down the hall. They were searching. _Damn it._ She scooted away from the door into the corner of the room, dragging Steve with her. He was trying vehemently to keep quiet, but she could see the pain in his eyes as he crawled after her, her insistent grip in his shirt nearly yanking it over his head. She moved herself tightly into the corner and gathered Steve on top of her, hushing him with a shake of her head. When the door knob turned, the girl in the bed flopped immediately back down and covered herself with the blankets, pretending to sleep. Black combat boots took a step inside the room, pushing the door open toward Steve and Natasha, crushing them into the corner and hopefully hiding them. Natasha held Steve tightly, not letting him move, barely letting him breathe. In the tight confines, his face was pressed to hers, and she could see every crease of agony about his eyes and furrowed into his brow and feel the brush of his hot, halting breath on her cheek. He was practically kneeling on her and shaking them both. She stared into his eyes, imploring that he stay quiet and still and strong.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of torment, the boots stepped back outside and the door closed. Relief washed Natasha cold, and she released a long breath as she untangled herself from Steve and slid out from the corner. Steve slumped, holding his hand to his stomach and shuddering. "We can't stop," she whispered.

"Is he Captain America?"

The timid question drew her attention from Steve. The little girl had come down from her bed. Her arm was in a pink cast. Natasha nodded. "Yes."

"What's wrong with him?"

Natasha knelt in front of Steve, panic coiling in her belly. They had to keep going. She had to get him up again. "He got hurt," she tersely answered.

"Are you going to get him help?" the girl asked, her eyes afraid and her tone plaintive. Natasha stared at her incredulously, lost in the moment and unable to catch her breath or her racing thoughts. That task seemed impossible. It took a lot for her to admit that to herself. It took even more for her to make a promise to someone that she desperately wanted to keep. But she nodded.

Without warning, the girl ran across her room to the door and yanked it open. Horror left Natasha reeling until she heard her screaming hysterically down the hall in the opposite direction. "Help me! _Help!_ There's a man! I saw…"

Her voice faded. She was giving them a distraction.

Natasha thanked her lucky stars, and the doubt that had momentarily fazed her disappeared with the tentative warmth of faith. "Come on," she said, grabbing Steve's hands and pulling him to his feet. He opened hazy eyes and staggered as he stood, nearly toppling them both. She led them back out into the hallway, and they thundered down the hall. Steve tripped and almost fell, but she held him up as they skidded around a corner and pounded through the double doors that marked the way through the ER.

It was busy. The night's allotment of broken bones and bumps and stomach aches and influenza cases were crowding the waiting room. There was a comforting hum of chatter and noise, and people were sitting and standing and milling about. This was finally some cover, although she was pretty damn sure HYDRA wouldn't hesitate to shoot an entire room full of innocents in order to kill them both.

She surreptitiously hid the gun in her pants and linked her arm through Steve's and folded their fingers together. They wouldn't remain unseen and unnoticed for long. They just needed to get through. These people were oblivious, caught up in their own injuries and worries and dramas, totally unaware of what was happening in the hospital. A man who they revered as a hero and a legend, a man who'd nearly died _again_ to protect them, was limping and bleeding and suffering right in front of their selfish eyes and nobody noticed. That irritated her, but she was glad for the anonymity.

"Just a little further," she said softly to Steve. He didn't answer. Each step looked like it was killing him. "We're almost there."

"Hey! Where are you going?" a nurse yelled at them as they walked to the back of the ER where the areas restricted to the staff were. A pair of double doors, locked without any obvious way through aside from the adjacent nurse's station, blocked their way. "You're not allowed back there!" The woman's stern frown loosened as she took a moment to really look at them. "Oh, my God… Is that… Are you…"

"Let us through," Natasha ordered. She forced her tone to soften. "Please."

The dumbstruck nurse stared at them for a miserably long second before nodding and reaching under the desk for the buzzer. The locks securing the doors clicked open. Natasha looked at her sternly, momentarily at war with herself over drawing attention to their escape and an obligation to warn the woman of what was coming. In the past she might have ignored the needling voice, but she found she couldn't. "Evacuate the ER." Then she pulled Steve through and the doors closed and locked behind them.

She took most of his weight back, seeing him struggling. "Come on," she said. She was sounding like a damn broken record, repeating herself uselessly, but it was all she could do to keep him going. "We can make it. We got this."

"So you keep… keep promising," he slurred. He staggered, pale and covered in sweat. Fresh blood dotted the front of his scrubs and some was coating his feet. She was losing him.

Quelling her panic, she held his arm tighter and tried to go faster. "Have you ever known me to lie?" She meant for that to be sound a lot coyer than it did with her gasping nearly as much as him with the effort of pulling him along.

Steve coughed, fighting to get enough air, somehow flushed and pale at the same time. "Is… is that sposed to be a… be a joke?" He smiled with bloodless lips. "Lyin's a good way… not to – not to die, though, right?"

"Shut up and save your breath." They turned the corner at the end of the hallway. These were doctor's offices and private conference rooms. The signs on the wall now pointed to the employee entrance. A shrill alarm suddenly blared over the hospital's PA system. A woman's voice came on, frantically requesting a security lockdown. Natasha gritted her teeth and pushed them faster, not certain if this was a good or bad thing. No matter what, they needed to move.

Another hallway. A doctor's lounge of some sort, filled with sleeping residents who were stirring given the loud warning. She grew frantic, wondering how much more of this damn maze there was, her heart pounding. She pulled him around into another corridor. And then they turned right into HYDRA.

Natasha gave a yelp as she was struck across the face. She was flung into the wall, her head colliding and sending sharp bolts of pain down her neck. Still, she managed to whirl and draw her gun from her pants. Steve barely got his shield up in time to block a kick from the other agent, staggering from the force of the blow. Natasha pulled the trigger, shooting the man threatening Steve in the knee. He went down with yowl, grasping his destroyed leg. Unfortunately, that left her exposed to attack, and the first man grabbed her by the hair and slammed her into the wall again. The gun skittered from her fingers across the gleaming floor.

There was a wicked wink of silver in the overly bright lights, and then a knife came driving toward her neck. Natasha barely caught the descending wrist in time, pushing back with all of her strength. The agent wedged his knee between her legs, driving her down further as the razor-sharp edge of the blade trembled above the sensitive flesh of her gasping throat. The agent's eyes were black and empty as he bore down on her, the muscles of his arms bulging beneath his black t-shirt. Natasha slipped, losing the battle, and that knife nicked her neck.

Steve's shield hummed as he slammed it down into the small of the man's back. He screamed, his face twisted in agony. Steve's next strike dropped him to the ground.

Natasha gasped a relieved moan, leaning back into the wall, shaken by the close call. She blinked away tears and sweat from her eyes, touching a stinging spot on her neck and finding her fingers came away red. Steve stood weakly, hunched and in pain. "Nat…" he whispered, reaching for her.

"They're headed for the employee entrance! Copy?" The man she'd shot was frantically shouting into his walkie talkie. Blood covered the floor as he scrambled away from them, futilely trying to escape. Natasha knocked Steve's hand aside and grabbed her fallen gun. The agent regarded her with terrified eyes as she stalked closer, fighting in a frenzy to get away. Without ceremony or hesitation, she killed him. There was no place for mercy in this.

Steve sagged to his knees, struggling for every breath. "Don't! Don't give up!" she shouted furiously. The long, white corridor was spinning and pain was shooting through her skull, but she swallowed her nausea and grabbed Rogers' arm and hauled him back to his feet. "Come on! _Come on!"_

They ran. Wildly and with every ounce of speed and energy they had left. Panic and desperation drove them beyond the limits of their battered and broken bodies. A moment later the large double doors of the employee entrance appeared at the end of a small lobby. Natasha would have sobbed in relief if there had been breath in her lungs and tears in her eyes to spare.

But her euphoria came too soon.

_No._ Five black ops soldiers converged in front of the doors. Rifles were held at the ready. _No!_

She shot first, hitting one of them in the chest. It didn't do much damage with the vests they wore. She skidded to a stop, desperate to run the other way. Steve fell, his feet sliding out from under him, his eyes wide with horror. She grabbed his arm again and tried and tried to pull him up. He managed to rise and twist around. But there was no point. She twirled and saw another three HYDRA agents behind them. They were surrounded.

There was no way they could fight. Nowhere to run.

A gun fired.

Steve cried out as a bullet ripped straight through his shoulder. Natasha watched in horror as the force of it yanked him off his feet again, and he landed hard on his back, his shield rattling against the floor. "No!" she screamed. Without a second thought, she threw herself over him protectively. Steve groaned beneath her, shaking violently, choking on his breath. Panic tore through her, panic and terror and the viciousness of defeat. "No…" She took his face in her hands, tears filling her eyes. He coughed again. There was blood on his lips.

A hand wove its way into her hair and cruelly yanked her off of him. "Steve!" she cried, scrambling and clawing her way back to him, but someone grabbed her arms and hauled her back. When she kept struggling, the agent belted her across the face. Her teeth gnashed her tongue and the coppery tang of blood filled her mouth as she collapsed to the floor. She tried to bring the gun up but it was kicked from her hand.

They were on them hard and fast. Natasha fought violently, desperate to keep a view of Steve. The others were surrounding him, their rifles pointed at his vulnerable body even though he was well past the point of fighting. Her hands were wrenched behind her back and she was roughly patted down. They found her other gun. Sam's bag was snatched away. "Steve! _Steve!_"

"Get up, Rogers," snarled one of the agents. The man had his gun pointed at Steve's head. Steve's eyes were hardly open and he was barely breathing. Blood was pooling beneath his shoulder. They kicked his shield off his arm. "I said _get up!_"

"Leave him alone!" Natasha shouted. She was awarded for defiance with another punch. Her cheek exploded in pain, but it hardly deterred her. She couldn't let them kill him. She wouldn't let them hurt him! "Steve!"

They were dragging him and pushing her. Natasha battled frustrated tears; she'd been in situations like this so many times before and found her way through them. She'd survived, gotten the job done, escaped. But seeing Steve like this… Two of the agents had Steve's arms, and they were lugging him across the tile floor of the lobby, smearing red as they went. The doors were held open and they were forced outside into the parking lot, the cold, misty night enveloping them.

Natasha's heart pounded in her throat. They pushed her further away from the hospital before kicking her legs out from under her. Then they cruelly dumped Steve next to her, tossing his shield down on top of him. He was so confused and in so much pain that he feebly curled in on himself when his shield hit him and it clanked uselessly against the asphalt. The men laughed, and one of the bastards kicked him right where he'd been shot in the abdomen. He rolled to his side as much as possible to cough a mouthful of blood to the ground. Natasha immediately tried to go to him, but her guards yanked her back. "On your knees, Romanoff. Hands on your head." Submitting to their demands, to defeat, was not within her. Not even with all the guns pointed at her. She glared balefully, hardly able to restrain her rage. The urge to kill had never before thrummed so strongly in her veins. "Do it or you can watch us kill him before we kill you."

Natasha closed her eyes. Every inch of her screamed that she not give in, but her arms raised of their own volition. She threaded her fingers together on the back of her head. _Not like this…_ _Please…_

"I'm not making the same mistake Rumlow did," sneered one of the agents. He stepped closer, looming over them. He drew his gun from his holster and pointed it dead center at Natasha's forehead. "You die, right here and right now." He smirked. "Hail HYDRA."

An engine roared. Suddenly light blinded them all. There was no time for anyone to move. A black SUV sped through the lot and slammed into the HYDRA agent in front of them. The man went flying a good ten feet before smashing into the asphalt, rammed by the hood of the car. Natasha wasted not a second on surprise, grabbing the barrel of the gun closest to her and twisting it. The shocked agent pulled the trigger, but it was too late. She flipped the rifle into her own hands, spinning and shooting its previous owner. The agent beside her never even had a chance to react before she whirled and landed a powerful kick into his midriff that sent him flying back into the building. The two who had pulled Steve were the next to go, brought down by her quick aim. Finally, she threw back her fist and caught the man who was trying to attack her from behind. He fell, his nose crushed, and she ruthlessly killed him.

Sam was out of the driver's seat. "Jesus," he whispered, eyeing the dead men surrounding Natasha. "Remind me never to piss you off."

She wasn't listening, dropping to her knees beside Steve and frantically reaching for his hand. Her hands shook as she felt for his pulse. It was a weak. Her eyes burned in rage and terror. "Steve? _Sam!_"

Sam was next to her in a breath. "Goddamn it," he muttered. "Is he breathing?" Steve's chest was rising and falling in a halting, slow wheeze. Sam laid his hand on Rogers' forehead as he leaned his ear close to Steve's bloody lips. But whatever he was going to say was interrupted by more shouting from inside the hospital. "Time to go," he declared.

They moved quickly to lift Rogers, Sam getting Steve's one arm around his own shoulders and Natasha grabbing the other. Steve made no sound, his feet dragging uselessly as they carried him to the car. Natasha opened the back door and then raced around to the other side to help maneuver Steve into the backseat. Somehow Sam handled the weight and strain of moving him while she climbed inside to help pull his upper body inside the car. Once they got him in, Sam ran back to collect Steve's shield. "Get your bag!" Natasha yelled. "Hurry!"

He paused to pull it from the hands of one of the dead men. He sprinted back to the car, stuffing the items into the passenger seat before moving behind the wheel. The door slammed shut. "Hang on," he breathlessly ordered, and he threw the car into drive and stepped hard on the gas.

Tires screeched. Men came from the shadows around the parking lot, firing at them. Natasha ducked, covering Steve's head where it lay in her lap as bullets slammed into the car. One of the windows was struck, sending glass flying inside. Cold, wet wind blasted them. "Go!" she cried. "Get us out of here!"

The SUV tore through the lot, heading wildly for the exit of the hospital. Guns crackled behind them, but they were further away now and the bullets couldn't reach them. They turned sharply onto the road, the car nearly tipping as Sam took the turn too fast. Natasha held her breath as she was slammed and then crushed into the door. But Sam got the car under control and floored it, speeding down the dark street as fast as possible. Natasha frantically looked behind them. They weren't being followed.

"Is he okay?" Sam yelled, glancing at Natasha in the rear view mirror. "Is he?"

Warm wetness was spilling into her lap. The new injury in Steve's shoulder was pulsing with blood. She shoved down her panic and guilt and grief, shoved it way down deep, and pressed with both hands as hard as she could on the wound to try and slow the bleeding. Steve didn't react to the pain, his eyes tightly closed. His face was white and lifeless. She looked up helplessly, meeting Sam's worried gaze in the mirror, blinking back frustrated and fearful tears. "Drive faster."

He didn't need to be told twice.


	3. Chapter 3

**DISCLAIMER:** _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** T (for language, violence, adult situations)

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Okay, I lied. One more chapter after this :-). I also made up some things about Sam, since they obviously tossed his back story in the movie and started from scratch. Read on and enjoy!

**PROTECTING THE PROTECTOR**

**3**

_"You know, it's kind of hard to trust someone when you don't know who that someone really is."  
____"Yeah… Who do you want me to be?"  
_"_How about a friend."_

"Sam, we need to stop." Natasha tried to catch Sam's eyes in the rearview mirror. "Pull over. I can't get this to stop bleeding."

Sam anxiously glanced in the mirror at her. For a moment he seemed totally lost, darting his gaze between her and the highway behind them. They had been driving for more than fifteen minutes on the Capital Beltway without any destination in mind other than to get away. So far neither of them had detected any sign of pursuit. Sam had been watching intently, his attention behind them almost as much as it was in front. There was no way to be certain they weren't being followed, but she didn't think HYDRA would be subtle about it if they were. After all, they'd shot up quite a few DC city streets in broad daylight without batting an eye. But even if they were being chased, they needed to take a chance. Steve was still bleeding. She'd been pressing on his wounded shoulder with bandages, putting as much pressure on it as she dared, and still it wouldn't stop.

Sam still hesitated. The night rushed around them, golden lights bleeding into twinkling halos through the water streaking across the windows of the car. She could see he was terrified of the idea of allowing HYDRA even a second to catch up with them. He gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles nearly cracked. He kept looking at her in the rearview mirror as if he was seeking her promise that this would be okay, that it was safe. She had no assurances to give him. "Okay," he said with a breath. "Okay."

"Just make sure it's some place quiet," she reminded. The last thing they needed was local law enforcement interfering. Obviously HYDRA had gotten its hands into a lot more than SHIELD.

"Right. I know a park not too far from here." The car pulled into the right lane and then off at an exit. "They hold the VA picnic there. Real nice event. It's coming up in a couple of weeks." She didn't know why he was telling her that. She didn't care. But it filled the silence, the silence that was only punctuated by Steve's soft wheezing. Sam looked over his shoulder at Steve's pale face cradled against Natasha before turning his eyes back to the road. Steve hadn't regained consciousness, hadn't reacted at all to the jostling of the car or Natasha's hands on his shoulder even though her attempts to stop the bleeding were most assuredly painful. His face was pasty gray and covered in a thin sheen of sweat. He was probably in shock. Whatever blood the doctors had managed to get back in body was now coating Natasha's legs and lap. Her hands were sticky with it. "God," Sam whispered. "Do these bastards give up?"

She didn't answer, but she knew they never would. HYDRA had been something she'd only heard about, a threat that seemed silly and irrelevant from decades ago. Steve had mentioned to her once or twice during their partnership that his old enemies were evil of the worst sort, deeper and darker than the world had ever known, but she'd never really listened, never truly understood. Idly she wondered how many of the dark and violent men she'd worked for or killed for in the past had been tangled up in HYDRA's plots. She could never know. HYDRA had grown in the warm body of SHIELD, infecting it and using it and draining it dry of its lifeblood, and they hadn't been able to remove the parasite without killing the host.

And the parasite kept living. It would find a new host.

The car slowing to a stop drew her from her thoughts. Sam found a place to park in an empty lot near a playground. He threw open the driver's door, snatching the bag of supplies from the passenger seat, and ran around to the back. The interior lights of the car turned on, and Natasha winced at the sudden illumination. Her head was pounding from the rush of panic and rage and adrenaline. The new wound on her arm stung and the older one through her shoulder throbbed. Her jaw ached from where she'd been hit, and her throat burned. Drawing a deep breath was all she could do to concentrate given all of that.

Sam opened Natasha's door. His eyes widened, likely at the sight of the blood covering both her and Steve. "God," he moaned again.

"Give me another bandage," she ordered, trying to summon sort of equanimity. Normally she could make herself not feel and bury it all where it couldn't bother her. That calm, numb place was tantalizing and frustratingly out of reach. Seeing Sam's horror nearly destroyed the remains of her composure. He fished in the bag for another pad. Natasha didn't dare peel the saturated one away from Steve's shoulder, afraid to disrupt whatever clotting had occurred. She took the clean pad from Sam and pressed it down on top of the wet one.

"What about the back?"

"As bad as the front. Maybe worse. I can't get a good look at it."

Sam grabbed another bandage, and together the two of them worked to lift Steve's broad torso. She moved over slightly to make more room. They propped him against her, Sam bracing his knee on the blood-stained car seat and Steve on his arm to help support his weight. Natasha kept a firm hand on the entrance wound while Sam applied as much pressure as he could against the exit wound. Steve groaned hoarsely, the first sound he'd made since they'd fled the hospital. Still, he didn't wake. The hopeful glint in Sam's eyes disappeared. The malignant expression that came to his face was dark and unyielding. "I'm getting pretty goddamn sick and tired of watching him get hurt."

"You may be in the wrong business," Natasha answered, trying to sound more nonchalant than she felt. She'd said that to Steve and he'd said it to her and now she was saying it to Sam. The cruel realities of who they were and what they did. Denial wasn't a sufficient shield when faced with so much pain. Her voice softened as she tipped Steve's head a little so that it rested against her, worried about how he rasped for air. "HYDRA plays for keeps. And their vendetta against Captain America is decades old. They're not going to stop until he's dead or every single one of them is." _Cut off one head and two more will take its place._ The odds weren't good.

Sam grunted angrily. "He's not going to face that alone," he softly swore. Without a second thought, he'd made that promise. He'd made it before, too. _"I do what he does. Just slower."_ Sam had never faltered, boldly charging into a war that didn't involve him because of some tentative friendship he'd formed with Steve. It was so easy for him, so simple a thing to offer up that level of loyalty and sacrifice. He and Steve were fundamentally very similar which explained why they hit it off so quickly. Sam had become Steve's friend like he had been fated to do it. Natasha didn't often envy anyone anything, but she envied Sam that. The clarity of a simple decision, of unfettered devotion. She hadn't been built to live like that, to be that remarkably giving.

A painfully long, silent moment escaped them. Sam eased his grip on the back of Steve's shoulder slightly and peered beneath the bandage. "It's better," he softly announced. The relief in his voice was palpable.

Natasha checked the entry wound. Finally the bleeding had slowed. Finally. She breathed a stiff sigh of relief. "Let's get him back down. He's not breathing very well."

Sam grabbed another clean bandage to augment the one he had been holding. He took Steve's upper body from Natasha as she slid back across the bloody leather. She grabbed the bandage on his back, keeping steady pressure as Sam moved Steve back down against her. He went around to the other side to pull Steve's bare feet down and resettle his legs. Blood dotted the scrubs around his thigh, too. How many more stitches had been torn during all the running and fighting and harsh treatment?

Sam came back and laid reddened fingers against Steve's carotid artery. He wasn't pleased with what he found. Natasha hadn't been, either. She'd checked his pulse at least a dozen times over the last fifteen minutes, and it was always fast and uneven, an erratic flutter underneath her fingertips. And his breathing was labored as well. Sam shook his head. "He needs a doctor."

That angered Natasha, not so much because it wasn't true, but because it was and it was miserably obvious and undeniable and completely impossible. "And which DC area hospital do you think is safe?" she asked coldly, turning a frustrated glare on him.

Sam didn't appreciate her retort. "We sure as hell aren't letting him die in the back of a car."

Natasha floundered. Truthfully, she'd been constantly considering the same sad facts since their escape, twisting the situation with mounting anger and grief and irritation in her heart. She wasn't accustomed to feeling so helpless, so damn guilty. She had promised Steve she was going to protect him. She had sworn to him and to herself that she would save him. And she hadn't. He'd been shot again. They'd hurt him _again_. It was her fault. It was something else she didn't normally acknowledge; in her line of work, in a world so beset by lies and murder, there was no room for a conscience. There was no place for shame and no excuse for failure. But with him these things were driving and punishing, like a knife twisting in her heart, and she was bleeding inside as badly as he was bleeding all over her.

Sam looked as burdened by sorrow and shame as she was. He laid his other hand on Steve's forehead. "We gotta do something. I know he heals fast, but can he…"

"I don't know." Steve was so hurt. He'd nearly died less than two days ago at the hands of the Winter Soldier. Maybe this last wound would be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. The thing that pushed his body beyond what the serum could restore. That thought was too distressing to acknowledge, a vile, hurtful thing that floated around her head and promoted guilt and panic. Natasha swallowed through a throat that was tight and thick with emotion. "Let's just get somewhere safe. I can try… Maybe Hill's…" She didn't finish because she was grasping at straws. She had no idea where Hill and Fury were or if they were even alive. Obviously HYDRA was trying to kill those who had thwarted their plan. Fury might have been safe if their enemies hadn't become aware that he'd survived the Winter Soldier's assassination attempt. And Hill was reliable and resilient. She'd find a way to survive.

There were methods of establishing emergency contact that Natasha could manage with a computer, but they were SHIELD methods. She had no idea if they were secure. There was no intel, no mission objectives to help clarify decisions. The risks were raw and unknown and immeasurable. But not doing anything wasn't an option. They couldn't stay on the run indefinitely, not with an injured man. And Sam was right: Steve needed help. He needed protection, protection that she couldn't give him.

Sam sighed, staring at Steve's lax face. He was clearly arriving at the same conclusions. "My folks live outside of Baltimore," he said softly. "We can be there in an hour."

"Sam, you don't–"

"They're out of the country. We can crash there. Figure this out," he responded. He slammed her car door and the passenger door and ran around to the other side. He closed the other rear door before returning to the driver's seat. The car was moving again, speeding back toward the Capitol Beltway to head north.

Steve moaned softly, his hand flailing away from him in a desperate struggle. She caught it and pulled it back and held it tight. "Hold on," she whispered. "Please hold on."

He relaxed against her, her one hand tangled with his, her other wrapped around his head and threaded through his hair and holding him close. Sam looked back at her, his eyes determined. "Just don't let him die on us."

He said that like she had the power to stop it. She wasn't sure she did.

* * *

Sam's parents lived in an affluent neighborhood. It was a quiet place in the northern suburbs of the city, filled with large, nice homes and full, pristine trees that neatly lined the streets. The houses were widely spaced and set back from the road. Natasha was glad for that, hoping it would provide some privacy. It was well past two in the morning by the time they arrived as well, and the area was silent, dark, and deserted.

Sam pulled the bullet-riddled SUV into a long driveway flanked by trees and tall shrubs. He stopped in front of a detached three-car garage and killed the motor. "Stay here. I'll be right back." He was gone before she could argue.

Natasha drew a deep breath. In the hour it had taken them to drive from DC, Steve's condition had worsened considerably. She hadn't wanted to say anything to Sam about it, not wanting to unnecessarily distract or burden him. She suspected he'd known anyway; he'd have to have been blind and deaf not to notice as Steve writhed and whimpered in her embrace. The soldier's rest had grown fitful, and whatever barrier unconsciousness had erected between him and the pain was steadily falling. She'd held him tighter, trying her damnedest to not _feel_. Not to feel the disgusting layer of blood coating her and caked into her pants and shirt. Not to feel the unwanted heat of a newly developing fever on Steve's face. Not to feel his body shake and suffer. Not to feel the pain and the worry and the hundred other emotions that had broken free of her control. Those things were surging within her, demanding their due. It took all of her strength to keep it restrained. And it took every scrap of her patience to sit there waiting while Steve languished in her arms.

In reality it was only a few short minutes. Sam came running back down the walk. He pulled Natasha's door open. "Come on," he demanded quietly and quickly. He looked around, checking the blackened street and the dark, adjacent houses and the yard and the sky. "Come on, hurry."

She was trying. She thrust the bag toward Sam, and he donned it before reaching inside and grabbing Steve by the shoulders. As gently as he could he pulled the limp soldier from the backseat. The blood-soaked bandages were disrupted by the motion, coming loose and falling away and revealing the weeping gunshot wound. Natasha scooted with Steve, trying to support his weight enough while Sam got a good grip. Then she wriggled out along Steve's legs to the other car door, kicking it open before running around the car to help. They pulled him from the car.

Steve let loose a wrangled cry as Sam tried to lift his wounded arm. They ended up setting him to the cold asphalt, unable to move him. Sam was panting, bracing his hands on his knees and glancing around helplessly. Natasha knelt beside Steve and hushed him. Her careful eyes frantically scanned their surroundings again, but they were still alone. "Steve," she said, turning her attention back to him. She patted his cheek, seeing his eyelids fluttering. This was the closest he'd come to consciousness in more than an hour. As much as it might hurt him, if they could rouse him enough for him to help them get him inside, it would be faster and easier. "Wake up."

Steve groaned hoarsely. His eyelids finally parted the slightest bit. He didn't focus on her, but his lips were moving. She thought it sounded like her name. "We're some place safe. But we need you to help us here. We're going to get your arms around us and then get you on your feet. You need to walk a few steps. Can you do that?" Steve closed his eyes again, wincing. His bloodied hand went to his stomach. Natasha didn't let him go back under, slapping his face a little harder. "Come on. Quietly now."

She didn't wait for a response, moving to his side, grasping his wrist and draping his heavy arm over her shoulders. She watched as Sam crouched and did the same. "On three?" Sam asked. She nodded. "One. Two. Three."

They stood in unison, Steve's weight made lighter between them. The soldier moaned and shivered and nearly fell, but they didn't let him. "Shhh," Natasha said softly. She heard a crack in the yard behind them and glanced fearfully over her shoulder but saw nothing except shadows and leaves.

Steve harshly panted, his head slung low so his chin pressed to his chest. It was hard to understand him around his raspy breaths. "I can't. Please don't…"

Hearing that made her shudder. She didn't have the heart to reassure or encourage him. Sharing a pained look with Sam, they shuffled forward, dragging him between them. Each step was agony. Steve was suffering, trying to stifle his sobs but failing. Natasha was back to ardently avoiding her feelings because having Captain America beg them to make the pain stop was so damn disturbing that she couldn't bear to let it sink into her. She was a statue. She was an agent of SHIELD. She was Black Widow. She was a goddamn _machine_.

No. She couldn't lie to herself. She cared about him far too much for that.

Finally, after a hellish eternity of excruciatingly slow progress, they limped and stumbled to the front door. They climbed two steps to the porch. The lights weren't on inside, but Sam had left the door open. It was so black in the entryway that she could barely see a few feet in front of her. Sam closed the door behind them and locked it securely. "Ahead," he whispered. "There's a den with a foldout couch." That was a minor blessing considering there was absolutely no way they could climb the stairs like this. They shuffled down the main hall, passing a spacious, expensively decorated living room and dining room, and reached the back area of the house. The den was on the left, and Sam slapped his hand inside, fumbling for the light.

Natasha squinted against the bright illumination. It was a fairly large room, filled with a rich, mahogany desk, neatly arranged book shelves, a brown leather couch and matching chair, and a flat screen television mounted over a gas fireplace. There was a laptop on the desk, along with a few papers and books. Pictures filled with a smiling faces. Sam in his youth with his parents. Sam in a pararescue uniform. Sam's life, and he could never go back to it as it had been. It was another life destroyed by HYDRA.

Sam left her in the door supporting Steve as he moved to the sofa, yanking the cushions away and quickly preparing the bed. He returned to help move Steve inside. They sat him on the side of the mattress. He wavered, his face scrunched in a tight grimace, shivering and fighting for every breath. "Now what?" Sam asked.

"Warm water. We need more bandages. And blankets."

Sam still had his hand comfortingly on Steve's shoulder. He nodded. "Right." He took off the bag and set it down and ran out to find what they needed.

Natasha glanced around quickly and found a pair of scissors on the desk. She stretched herself as long as she could to grab them, afraid that if she left Steve without her support he would pitch forward. Then she set to cutting the scrubs off his body. He was shivering, his eyes dazed and bright with fever. There was no joke this time. No levity. With the shirt gone, she got a good look at the shoulder wound. It was enflamed and swollen. She'd suffered worse in the past, and she knew he had as well. And were this any other circumstance, he would have brushed it off and recovered like it was nothing.

She stood to her full height, letting Steve rest his forehead against her stomach for support, and fished through the bag. Out came the vials of drugs and the stolen syringes. There were only a few bandages left. She grabbed a gauze pad and ripped the sterile wrapper. "Nat?"

She hesitated, his soft voice stilling her hands and seeping through the barriers around her spirit. She wove her fingers through his hair again, tentatively bringing him closer. Touching him before had seemed so natural, desperate and necessary. Now she was unsure. She was afraid if she slowed down or stopped and allowed herself to admit her fears for even one moment, that moment of weakness would pound into her strength and completely _shatter_ it. "What?"

"Did it hurt?" he asked softly. He didn't seem to be able to get enough air into his lungs. "When he shot you?"

It was a downright idiotic question. It had been one of the most painful moments of her life. The way that slug, so long and deadly, had ripped through her body… Fiery agony had arced up and down her back, radiating through her stomach. But he wasn't talking about physical pain, and she knew it. He was talking about _how_ it had _felt_. She had been helplessness to protect herself, let alone protect the man she'd been assigned to escort. To the Winter Soldier, she'd been a minor impediment, something that simply happened to be in his way. Something between him and completing his mission. There had been no hesitation. No emotions vaguely resembling anything human. Ruthless. She shuddered to think that that could have been her, that that _would_ have been her, had she never come to SHIELD.

And then when the Winter Soldier had hunted them down two days ago… The pain had been the same. The terror and panic and futility in fighting. "Yes."

"When he killed your scientist… why didn't he kill you?"

She'd lain next to her totaled car, trying in vain to keep the blood in her body, hardly conscious and reeling from the shock of it all and knowing beyond a doubt that the man she'd been sent to save was dead beneath her. She'd seen those dark eyes back up at the top of the ravine. Staring down at her. Like she'd been nothing. Nothing even worth killing. "I wasn't his mission."

Steve groaned hoarsely, his voice rough with emotion. She could feel him shaking and breaking apart. "I was," he ground out. "We used to… Everything we went through… That's all I was to him. A mission."

She didn't know what to say. Despite the bright lights in the room, the world was dark and tight and unforgiving. A part of her wanted to comfort him and remind him that the Winter Soldier – _Bucky_ – had pulled him out of the river instead of letting him drown; no one else could have done it. Comforting him was what Sam would have done. What a friend would have done. Still, she couldn't get the words out. It wasn't in her nature to placate anyone. Despite how easily lying came to her, she couldn't manage some heartfelt promise that things would be okay and _mean_ it. So she told him what she had before, because this, at least, she was certain was true. "None of it was your fault, Steve."

He didn't answer, but she knew he didn't believe her. If Barnes had been his friend once, then whatever had happened to him that had landed him in the hands of HYDRA, Steve would have tried to stop it. He would have died to stop it. That was who he was and what he did. She thought that was ridiculous sometimes – _you can't protect everyone all the time_ – but she didn't begrudge him that he tried. No matter how cruel and vile and dangerous the world was, he would always try.

"I gotta go after him," he murmured. A shudder of pain wracked his form, and he grabbed her hips and held onto her with bruising intensity. She wanted to tell him that that was a million and one ways stupid and foolhardy and dangerous, but she didn't. She couldn't. "Promised him I'd keep him safe… Promised him. I let him down. Let him go."

"Shhh. Don't talk."

"Gotta find him. Bring him back. Gotta go after him." He kept saying this, over and over and over again like it was some sort of driving obsession. She closed her eyes and shook her head in frustration.

He was still muttering it when Sam returned, hidden by the humongous pile of stuff he was carrying. He saw Steve leaning into Natasha, her hands in his hair and tucking him to her abdomen, his hands holding onto her waist like a lifeline. Sam's face crumbled in worry. He dumped his burden onto the floor beside the bed, sheets and blankets and pillows and clothes. He'd also found a first aid kit, which he set to the bed beside Steve, and then he fished a water bottle out of each pocket of his Dockers. "The water's boiling. How is he?"

Natasha shook her head. "He's got a fever." She could feel the heat radiating from Steve's forehead and cheeks through her clothes.

Sam looked tense and afraid. "He needs blood."

"I know." She gently peeled Steve off of her and took up the bandage again. She pressed it to the oozing hole in the back of Steve's shoulder.

Sam knelt in front of Steve, grasping his knee strongly. "Cap?"

Steve blinked. His face was flushed red. But his eyes glinted in recognition. "Sam?"

"Yeah, buddy." Sam smiled wanly. "You must really enjoy getting shot to go and do it again." Steve grunted half a chuckle, his eyelids slipping shut in a taut grimace. "Something tells me it's an occupational hazard when you piss off as many bad guys as you do."

Steve didn't answer. He was growing more agitated, shivering harder and harder, his hands rhythmically contorting and balling into fists so tight that his knuckles were white. The tremors wracking his frame were relentless. Sam shook his head. "Just relax." He wasn't doing a very good job of following his own advice. He looked downright anxious, verging on panic. Faintly there was whistling noise. "I'm gonna get the water." He ran out of the den.

Natasha waited, realizing anew that they were in serious trouble. She'd seen enough gunshot wounds to know Steve's was serious but in and of itself not fatal. But it needed treatment. Stitches would have been good, and surgery would have been better, but the first would probably be difficult and the second was impossible. The entrance wound was in decent shape, but the exit wound was worrisome, as it was larger and more raggedly torn. They didn't have the necessary equipment to effectively suture it; Steve was already ill, and introducing further infection via poorly sterilized needles and non-medical grade materials could be deadly. She knew his serum-enhanced body could heal things like this on its own, but again, it was already so damn drained and beaten down that she was rightly worried. They couldn't handle this on their own.

Sam came back and said the same thing that she was thinking. "He needs more than we can give him." He poured steaming water from a tea kettle into a bowl and dunked a few wash cloths he'd found into it. Then he placed one against the injury. Steve choked on his breath. "Easy, man. We got you. Just trying to clean you up a bit."

They worked rapidly and silently. Sam pressed the hot water to the shoulder wounds to try and clean the dirt and blood away and limit the risk of infection. Natasha followed with antiseptic they found in the first aid kid. Then they bandaged it as best they could with the last of the hospital grade pads and gauze. Steve panted and wheezed through the procedure, trapped in a haze of fever and exhaustion. Once they were done with that, they looked over the other wounds. Saturated bandages were replaced with new ones, but they were nothing more than band-aids and antibiotic ointments over surgical wounds and injuries that had nearly killed him. After finishing, they got Steve his feet so Sam could quickly dress the bed. Steve trembled, harshly panting through gritted teeth, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. He looked dizzy. "Gonna… Think I'm gonna…"

"No, you're not," Natasha warned. Steve jabbed his teeth into his lower lip and breathed through his nose to quell his nausea. Thankfully he got himself through it. And then they settled him against pillows and under quilts.

Natasha grabbed another syringe and loaded it full of morphine. Sam watched her after drawing another light blanket up and over Steve. She handed him the needle, which he stuck into Steve's arm while she filled another full of antibiotics. They alternated, refilling the syringes for multiple doses. With Steve's rapid metabolism, she didn't know if the medications would even make a difference. But it was all they had. As Sam gave him the last injection, she laid her hand over Steve's creased forehead. He was burning up. "You have a thermometer?"

Sam was worried, extremely so. "Yeah." He disappeared for a moment, and Natasha kept her hand on Steve's forehead, watching with a stoic expression on her bruised face as he quaked and suffered through the pain. Inside she was screaming.

He returned with a plain, drug-store purchased thermometer. They managed to get it in Steve's mouth despite how he was grinding his teeth in pain. The few seconds it spent getting a reading were infinite. Then it beeped. "104."

"Shit," Sam breathed. He looked at her with angry eyes. "If you have some super spy way of getting help, _get it_."

She was across the room at the laptop in a breath. She didn't belabor her concerns about the chances of this succeeding. Or the chances of it leading HYDRA right to them, given that SHIELD was compromised and coming apart at the seams. She sat at the desk, listening as Steve wheezed and Sam murmured comfortingly to him. He was trying to get Steve to sip a little water. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. In a matter of minutes she managed to bounce her tracks around the world a few times. Anyone with a modicum of skill at hacking would be able to trace her, but hopefully it was enough to ward off a basic tracker. Then she accessed the SHIELD mainframe, which was surprisingly still functioning. Chaos was spreading throughout the organization like poison, so she didn't know who could be listening. They were a few back doors into the system, seemingly low-level and mundane access points available only to those who knew to look for them. They were meant to provide emergency communication in the event SHIELD's main computer system was infiltrated by an enemy organization. This pretty much fit the bill.

She left Hill an encrypted message with the house's address. _"Rogers badly hurt. HYDRA hunting us. Need help."_ Her fingers lingered over the touch pad of the mouse, wary for a moment of sending this. Once she did, she wouldn't be able to get it back, and if HYDRA was listening, it would lead them straight to this place. But, like so much else of this harrowing situation, she had to take the risk.

She tapped the touch pad, and the message was on its way.

"Is it done?" Sam asked. He'd obviously been watching her and noticed her long, defeated breath and slumping posture. She turned and nodded. "Now what?"

He was asking. Again. She didn't have the answers. She didn't know why everyone thought she did. She followed orders, did what her superiors told her. Fury was gone. Her captain was injured. She didn't know what to do. "We wait. Somebody will come. Hopefully it's help and not HYDRA."

He stepped from the bed, reaching behind him. He pulled a handgun from his clothes and handed it to her. She glanced from it to his eyes. That frightened look was gone then, and the grim determination of the Falcon was back. "If it's HYDRA, they gotta get through us to get to him." She nodded and grabbed the gun. He fished another gun from the waistband of his blood-stained pants. And he pulled a shotgun from the pile of extra sheets and blankets he'd gathered earlier.

At her small smile and questioning look, he shrugged. "My dad likes guns."

"Thank God for that," she murmured, comforted by the simple and familiar feel of the weapon in her hand. At least they could fight.

* * *

They killed the lights in the den save for the small desk lamp beside the bed, worried that any sign that the house was inhabited would lead their enemies to them. HYDRA was resourceful; they'd surely check Sam's relatives in the course of any search. Sam pulled the SUV into the garage. Then he locked every door, secured every window, and closed every blind and curtain. He walked the entire house, armed with two handguns and a shotgun and enough ammunition to supply a small army. He came and went from the den every so often, relentless in his pacing, vigilant in his watch even though he must have been exhausted. He gripped the shotgun tightly, tense with fear and anticipation, as he checked on them. Then he was back out in the hallway, walking the path around the house again.

Natasha stayed by Steve's side. She methodically wet washcloths in a pot of cool water, wringing the excess before laying them atop Steve's burning forehead and across his chest in a vain effort to try and draw the fever from his head. His strained breathing was loud in the utter silence, but not nearly as loud as her own heart as it ached and throbbed and suffered through each of its labored beats. What she was doing probably wasn't making a damn bit of difference, but she kept trying. His fever was so high that maybe the feel of cool dampness to his skin was at least pleasant. Sadly it was impossible to tell. He wasn't quite asleep, but he wasn't fully awake either. Delirious. Drifting from awareness to nightmare to memory and back again. His eyes blinked languidly, freeing tears sometimes. He would talk sometimes, too, trapped in the past or in some perversion of it. The war. The Winter Soldier.

But she tenderly wiped away the tears and hushed his whispered pleas to ghosts and demons. Some part of her was idly shocked at how easy this came to her, sitting beside him and comforting him and caring for him. She'd asked him when they'd been driving to New Jersey what he wanted her to be. She was a murderer, a lover, a spy and an assassin and an agent of SHIELD. None of those fit what she needed to be now. What she needed to be for him.

She was always good at pretending to be something she wasn't.

She caught the water droplets rolling down his glistening skin with her fingertips and brushed them away. His face shone in moisture, tight with agony and illness. His breath was charged through roughly clenched teeth. The pain was eating him alive. She wasn't above begging. Not for him. "Stay with me, Steve," she whispered. "Stay with me."

His lips shifted around some breathy words, but she couldn't understand what he said. She watched the pink of his tongue slip out to wet his dry, cracked lips. She grabbed a cup of water on the end table and helped him raise his head slightly, tipping it to his mouth to pour some inside. He closed his eyes and sagged when she let him go. When he blinked again, there was finally a bit of _him _in his gaze. She saw it immediately, her heart leaping in hope. "Nat?"

"I'm here," she assured.

"Don't… don't feel so good," he admitted. It was the most lucid thing he'd said in the last couple of hours. And probably the most ridiculous.

"Just be quiet," she ordered. "Save your strength."

"For what? Mission? Where're… where're we goin'?"

"Nowhere. But help is coming."

He choked on what could have been a laugh. If it was, it was a miserable one. "You keep promisin'…" She smiled at that, lowering her head slightly. "Wouldn't lie to a guy… would ya?"

That gave her pause. She didn't know how to answer, scrambling for something to say, so she took one of the cloths and wet it again. She leaned over the bed to drape it over his neck. He was shivering again. The fever was climbing higher and higher. If they couldn't get it down… Her own distress pushed words from her mouth, if only to keep up the conversation and keep him talking. "Depends. Do you want me to lie to you?"

His gaze was unfocused, seemingly sightless, as he stared into the shadows above. "No." He jerked mindlessly against the rumpled sheets and blankets. "I never want you to lie."

She swept the cloth over the well-defined muscles of his chest where she could, avoiding the welts and cuts and bruises and bandages. Her touch was light, like she was painting water over shining skin. She felt dizzy watching his breast rise and fall so unevenly. The darkness spun and all she could see through eyes that burned with exhaustion was his handsome face, tortured by everything that had been done to him.

She was talking again just so she wouldn't have to listen to his strained gasps and the echoing boom of her own heart in her ears. "I could tell you the truth. Things I never tell anyone." She didn't know what she was saying. She was so bone-weary, beaten and battered and off-kilter, that this inexplicably made sense. It was the only answer to how screwed up her world had become. She wasn't Agent Romanoff, not anymore. She wasn't Black Widow. Her secrets didn't matter anymore because those covers didn't exist. They had died with SHIELD. She could tell him anything. That was what friends did. They shared secrets, weathered storms together, carried each other's hurts for the sake of companionship and love. She wanted that. She wanted to tell him things that she'd never admitted to anyone. _Not even myself._

She smiled, vaguely amused at herself and these random, nonsensical ideas. How safe it would be to tell him. It was tragically sad when she really thought about it objectively. Even now, with all of her identities thrashed and her world crumbling to pieces and the man she… and Steve burning away right before her eyes, she couldn't let her guard down without calculating the risk. "After all this is over, would you even remember?"

He didn't answer. She wondered if he'd drifted off again. Then he groaned and gasped and his grip on her hand turned tight and painful. She felt her bones grinding together. Her selfish reverie was destroyed by his hoarse cry. She grabbed for the vial of morphine, fumbling for it. It was nearly empty. And it didn't matter worth a damn. He needed a constant push through an IV for it to even take the edge off his pain, and there was no way she could give him that. Everything came crashing down. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. Hot shame burned in her eyes. Suddenly she couldn't keep it in. She didn't know how to handle guilt. Not like this. Her heart had been buried under so many shields, guarded by so many lies, that the vulnerability of being exposed and open felt damning and brutal. "I'm so sorry."

He grunted. "Don't…"

"I couldn't protect you. You saved me, and I couldn't…" So many times, he'd saved her. And not just in the last couple of horrific days. On their missions. As part of the Avengers. He'd come to her rescue but never flaunted it, never expected anything of her, never even acknowledged it. His selflessness infuriated her, but it wasn't because _of_ him. It was because she couldn't be the same _for_ him. She'd been a selfish fool to think she could be what he wanted or needed. "I owe you for everything, and I couldn't stop anything."

They lingered in the silence that followed, Steve lost in a dark struggle to survive, Natasha lost up in herself. A soft swish of cloth was thunderous in the quiet. She stiffened, not turning, not wanting the tears in her eyes to betray her. "You okay?" Sam asked from the door.

"Yes," she answered curtly.

"Is he?"

"No." She sniffed and wiped at her face, refusing to let the tears fall even if that was a sure sign to anyone looking that she was upset. "His fever's not coming down."

Sam made his way to the bed, gazing at Steve in fear. "It's been two hours." She said nothing to that. "We have to chance taking him to a hospital. We have to."

"No," Natasha argued.

He lost his patience. "You want this to go on?" The stress was getting to him. He looked positively wrecked. His own hands shook as he grabbed Steve's other hand. Steve writhed on the bed weakly, his mouth opening in a soundless cry. "HYDRA killing him won't matter if he dies here!"

Having Sam question her was enough to stoke the fires of her defiance. She made herself feel _sure_ that she could protect him. "He's not going to die," Natasha returned lowly. She felt cornered, wild. "I'm not going to let that happen." Sam said nothing to that. She didn't look at him, stubbornly resuming with the wet wash cloths, trying not to feel like such a goddamn hypocrite. _I only act like I know everything._

She felt Sam sag wearily. All his frustration left him on a long, deep sigh. "You're right. Sorry." He seemed sincerely ashamed for his outburst. "I'll, uh… Do you want a break? I can… for a while – "

"No."

Sam stood still. Her refusal hadn't been heated or hurt. It was emotionless. As emotionless as she wanted to be. She could be a machine again. Not a friend. A machine. The pain was so terrifying that she yearned for that distance, for detachment. For the comfort of apathy. _Don't feel it. Don't let it in. Don't feel anything. _"Alright. I'm gonna go keep watch. Just call if… Just call me."

Natasha held her breath until she was sure he was gone. Then she looked back to Steve. His eyes were closed and sunken. He was barely breathing, clinging to life. Clinging to her.

This strength she thought she had… It was all a goddamn illusion. "You said you didn't want me to lie," she hissed. Her voice cracked. She felt so low, so angry at him and herself and everything that had betrayed her. She grabbed his hand and held it tightly between her own, bringing it to her chin and desperately kissing it. Their fingers folded together again so perfectly, and she rested her forehead on where they joined like she was praying. The sob she was trying to hold back, that she had been fighting for _hours_, finally broke free. It was loud and raw and ragged. "I don't want to lie. Not anymore. So don't you make a liar out of me, Rogers."

_Don't you dare._


	4. Chapter 4

**DISCLAIMER:** _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** T (for language, violence, adult situations)

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!

**PROTECTING THE PROTECTOR**

**4**

Natasha pulled herself together.

It was what she always did only it wasn't usually so hard. She'd killed so many of her own emotions so long ago that finding them rising from the darkness inside of her heart wasn't easy to accept or dismiss. She didn't know how to control what she was feeling, and control was what she prized most of all. She'd never come apart like before. Even losing Fury, the man who'd given her a second chance and helped her start to wash the blood from her hands, hadn't gotten to her like this was. A few tears had been all she could manage over Fury's body. But as Steve suffered in her arms, she had cried like she had nothing left, like the pain she was feeling would consume her. Maybe it would. Maybe it should. And it wasn't just that Steve was dying, although that was certainly upsetting. It was her security, her identity in not having an identity at all, her secrets. They were all dying, too. Everything she was, everything she had been and could be, had become inexorably tied to Steve surviving the night.

But she stopped sobbing and wiped her eyes until they were red and her cheeks until they were hot and raw. She was too damaged to even allow herself more than a moment of release. And once that moment was over, she went back to the mission.

The night wearily wore on until the first hints of dawn began to paint the sky. Steve's breathing had turned into a pathetic attempt to inhale at all, a slow, troubled wheeze from lungs that were too traumatized to function properly anymore. His erratic and desperate struggles against the pain were gone now. He lay limp, too weak to move, too weak to even shiver. She was losing him to blood loss and shock and sepsis and too many devastating wounds sustained too quickly. Captain America wasn't invulnerable. She'd known that, but somehow it had been okay to believe otherwise. He couldn't be hurt, and he couldn't be killed. It had taken old enemies and brothers turned ghosts to bring him down and show them all how wrong they'd been.

She'd been the most wrong of all. She didn't know how to save him. She couldn't protect him.

Not long into her vigil, she'd climbed onto the foldout couch. She'd settled next to him, her back against the sofa cushions, and gathered him into her embrace. His fever was raging. The sickening heat seeped into her skin like poison. She had her hand over his chest, feeling each breath rattle in and out of his body, feeling his heart weakly thump beneath her fingers. It was more for her comfort than for his. His head was pillowed to her breast, his face lax and waxy. His lips were slightly parted, dry and cracked and red. She'd been trying to get him to drink, but it didn't seem to be doing much to relieve the dehydration. He was too delirious and weak to manage it. He needed blood and IV fluids and proper antibiotics. He needed a doctor and a hospital.

Sam was right. They couldn't fix this. And she was letting him suffer by ignoring that, by remaining so adamantly certain that this was the right course. Sam had come and gone numerous times over these last long, awful hours, and every time he had appeared at her side the same words were poised on his lips and the same furious, frustrated accusations glinted in his eyes. _Take him to a hospital. Take him to a doctor. Get help! Don't you see what you're doing to him? Can't you see you're letting him die?_

She wasn't so sure she wasn't anymore even though she tried to seem steadfast. She wasn't so sure Steve could beat this on his own, that the serum could save him. _He's strong._ She had said that, hadn't she? _He can fight this. He will. _She believed that, didn't she? _It won't kill him. But HYDRA will. You want to risk that?_

_I'm not going to sit here and watch him die._

This argument went on and on. At least, she thought it had. She was so damn tired that things were really starting to blur together, and the war between her conscience and the choices she'd made was beginning to sound an awful lot like the debate she had had with Sam. He watched her in anger and disgust and doubt as she uselessly soothed Steve with soft, meaningless words and cool wash cloths that did nothing to alleviate his fever. He watched her in fury and frustration, both for her and for himself. Any fledgling sense of trust between them was being dashed by Steve's suffering. If Sam really wanted to, he could have fought her about it. He could have forced her to listen. He wasn't, but not because he cared for her feelings or respected her opinions or because he knew she would have beaten him. Truth be told, he was as unsure as she was about what he thought they should do. If there was a right answer, a correct course of action in this hellish nightmare, it was impossible to tell. She wasn't used to there being an easy way out; she had no delusions about how difficult and complex life was. She was just afraid that, for the first time in all the hellish nightmares that had preceded this one, there was _no way out_.

"If his fever isn't down by the morning, we're going," Sam had declared with a ridiculous amount of confidence and authority the last time he'd been beside her in the den. He was overcompensating for uncertainty and indecision. She'd nodded, feeling dead inside. But morning was coming, and indecision was the only thing that persisted.

That and her unwillingness to let Steve go for even a second. Sam hadn't come back in a while. She wondered if he had fallen asleep on watch. She supposed she should have been angry at him if he had, but that required more energy and concentration than she currently possessed. In fact, she envied him if he had nodded off. She'd never wanted sleep so acutely. Her back ached from remaining motionless and stiff for so many long hours. Her shoulderwas so sore she could hardly stand to move it. The place on her arm where she'd been clipped by a bullet was burning. She was hungry and thirsty and dizzy with fatigue and fear. And paranoia was torturing her senses. Every creak of the house was HYDRA. Every shifting shadow was a threat. She desperately needed to rest, but she couldn't. _She couldn't._

Steve moaned. He'd been brushing with consciousness off and on for quite some time, but even when he woke he wasn't grounded in reality. The fever was wreaking havoc on his mind. Every time he came around (which was becoming more of a rarity), she'd tried to reach him through the heat and pain. But he was lost. She didn't know how to get him back. He mumbled something, trying to turn to his right side. She halted his movements and hushed him softly. "Just lie still."

"It hurts…"

"I know." Even if the painkillers hadn't been completely useless in providing relief, they were long gone. _Just a little while longer._ She wanted to whisper that, to promise him that, but she didn't. They both deserved more than another promise she couldn't keep. Her helplessness cut deep. She didn't ever admit to anyone, let alone herself, that she wasn't capable or that she couldn't get the job done. That she could fail. But the evidence was pretty damn stark before her teary eyes. It pushed despair into her hoarse voice. "Hang on, Steve. Please. You have to keep fighting. _Please._"

He didn't speak again for long time. She closed her eyes and caressed his hair from his forehead and let the pace of his shallow breathing and her own heartbeat lull her for just a moment. The blackness swooped in from all around, and before she knew it and against every wailing wish inside her head she was slipping away into the comforting pall of nothingness. Sleep. Maybe when she woke, she would find this was all some sort of bad dream. Like the end of a fairy tale, the ones she'd read in her youth, and they could all live happily ever after…

It wasn't, and they couldn't. Voices poured from the blackness. _"Would you trust me to save your life?"_

"_I never want you to lie."_

"_It's stuff like this that makes me have trust issues."_

"_How about you, Romanoff? Do you think the Cap's invincible?"_

"_He's gonna be okay, you know. The doctors said he'll be okay."_

"_Are you ready for the world to see you as you really are?"_

"_I've been compromised. I've got red in my ledger. I'd like to wipe it out."_

"_What a waste."_

"_HYDRA will kill him. HYDRA will kill all of you. This isn't the end."_

"Peggy?"

A whisper slashed through the nothingness in her mind, and her eyes shot open. She jolted to awareness, an uncomfortable rush of energy leaving her panicked and reeling and trembling. The room was gray as the first touches of dawn slipped in through the drawn blinds. Her gun was still on the bed beside her. Steve was still warm and breathing against her. They were still alone. They were still safe.

The thundering misery of her heart slowed. She cursed herself for her lapse, even if it had only been for a few minutes, and looked down to Steve's face. He was awake and staring at her. Staring at her but not seeing her. Not recognizing her. "Peggy?" he whispered again.

She didn't know who Peggy was. "It's Natasha, Steve," she reminded. She didn't like the lost look in his eyes, as though the fever had scorched away everything since he'd come of out the ice. His delirium was worse than before. His eyes wandered and then slipped shut. She shook his face slightly, vehemently trying to ground him. "Look at me."

"Peggy… Please…"

"It's Natasha. Don't you remember what happened?"

It was painfully obvious he didn't. He was far away from her. That scared her. "What… what happened?"

"You got shot, remember? The hospital?"

"Peggy?"

"It's Natasha, Steve. Listen to me. I'm not…" Suddenly the image of that woman with the dark hair and the striking eyes from the secret SHIELD office at Camp Lehigh flashed through her mind. Steve had been so tense, so quiet and withdrawn when she'd asked who the woman in the picture had been. Natasha closed her eyes again, eyes that stung with anger. Her heart was a heavy, dead weight in her chest. She'd never felt like this before, so much sorrow on behalf of somebody else. But she felt it for him.

"Please stay with me," he whispered plaintively. He reached up a shaking hand and pressed his palm to her cheek. "Please stay."

She grasped his hand with every intention of pulling it away, with every part of reason and rationality and self-preservation that was still intact within her demanding she keep trying to reach him and convince him of reality. That she keep her distance. But she didn't. She didn't know who he thought she was. She didn't care. "I'll stay," she swore.

Steve's face crumpled in obvious relief. He licked his lips again, closing his eyes and sagging against her. He nuzzled his face into her body more. "I'm so tired…"

"I know."

"Did we win? Is it over?"

"It will be soon. Just hang on to me."

Tears escaped his half-lidded eyes and slid down his temples. She wondered what sort of misery he was reliving. A battle from the war. A nightmare from his past. Maybe this Peggy woman had sat then just as she was sitting now, holding a wounded Captain America on the battlefront, whispering solace and stroking his hair and promising things she couldn't know were true. Hurting just as she hurt for a man that had come to mean so much to her. Somehow that emboldened her. Somehow that validated something that was fundamentally wrong. She had no idea if this scene had truly played out in the past or if it was merely something his stricken mind was conjuring up to ease his pain. It didn't matter. If she could ease his pain, she would. Even if nothing could make it right for her to steal a moment that wasn't and would never be hers.

But steal it she did. Her hesitation faded. "Peggy…" he whispered again. His relief was all the encouragement she needed. It was the first time since she'd met him that she'd ever seen him so at ease, without that look of perpetual tension holding his face hostage. He always seemed like he was carrying the weight of the whole damn world on his shoulders. "Peggy?"

"I'm here."

"I missed you…" He breathed a sob. "So much."

"Steve," she whispered. He looked at her with those deep and beautiful blue eyes. Impulse and desperation drove her – _she shouldn't do this_ – to lean down and capture his mouth with her own. The kiss was chaste at first, her lips lightly pressed to his, before the power of her fear for him and for herself and desire pushed her to deepen it. It wasn't like before in the mall when he'd been so surprised and uncomfortable and she'd been entirely in control. She'd been teasing and taunting back then, despite the gravity of that situation, enjoying his flustered confusion. This was something else, something open and pure and built of things that went deeper than she thought she could admit. He tasted like blood and tears, but that didn't dissuade her as she held him tighter and kissed him harder. Inside she broke again. _This is wrong._

"When this is over…" he whispered against her lips. "I want… I need to tell you. I need to tell you how much I–"

"Just sleep." She kissed him again, wanting to trap whatever he was going to say before he could say it. She knew what he wanted. She didn't want to hear it. She _couldn't_ hear it. "You don't need to tell me anything."

But she couldn't stop him even if she truly wanted to. He was driven, too. "I love you."

He wasn't saying it to her. Not to her. She wasn't the woman he loved. He was talking to a ghost, promising his heart to the past. She'd never imagined hating herself quite so much. They were partners, fellow agents, barely even friends. They hardly knew anything about each other, and were it not for these difficult and traumatic circumstances, that wouldn't have changed. The tentative bond between them was only that: tentative. A first brush at something that could grow, given time and the right circumstances. This stolen moment wasn't real. It couldn't be real.

_He wasn't saying it to her._

When she made herself realize and accept that, the grief was crushing. The tears came back, tears she couldn't deny or hide. But she didn't let it slow her, didn't permit the pain any purchase in her heart that might shatter the illusion. No matter how much it hurt her, she would make it real for him. "I know," she whispered. "I love you, too."

He slept peacefully after that, enveloped in the warmth and safety of her arms. She didn't. She stayed awake long after he lost consciousness, long after his fever finally began to break. Long after the new day began. She felt numb, not wholly aware, dazed by pain and exhaustion and disappointment. She felt dirty, like this black and vile muck was covering her spirit, but she couldn't make herself regret what she'd done. This was who she was. Different things to different people, whatever the situation required. A thousand contradictory covers. An actress. A liar who spoke this most convincing lie because it was mixed so deftly with truth. She was ashamed to have taken the place of the woman he'd loved. She was ashamed to admit to herself how selfish she really was.

But if the cost of his moment of peace was her lifetime of shame, it was worth it.

* * *

"Natasha?"

Her eyes snapped open. Her hand flew to the gun beside her and tightened around it. She swung it up without a moment's hesitation and pointed it at the blurry face looming over her. "Whoa!" gasped Sam as he backed away and raised his hands disarmingly. "Easy! Take it easy. It's just me."

Her heart was pounding and she couldn't catch her breath or remember for an achingly long minute where she was or what she was doing. She darted her eyes around the unfamiliar room, the books and nice furniture and pleasant family pictures. Daylight rushed inside, blasting away any lingering shadows. She was uncharacteristically disoriented, her memories a jumble of pain and terror that refused to coalesce into anything meaningful. The barest of instincts took over. The gun didn't waver. It never did.

Then she saw Sam's eyes, wide and wet with relief. And she felt Steve against her, warm and breathing and _alive._ "They're here," Sam said. He smiled. "They came."

There was a flurry of activity on the other side of the den. Men came rushing inside. Leading them was Maria Hill. She looked as she always did: meticulously kept, stoic and strong, with not a hair out of place or the tiniest sign of distress. But when her stern eyes fell upon the scene before her, they softened. She walked over to the bed and nodded to Natasha, holding the other woman's gaze. "I got your message," she said. "And I called for help."

"And does the help deliver, or does it deliver?" Tony Stark entered the room, flanked by bodyguards and soldiers. He, too, seemed calm and composed, wearing nice jeans and an expensive blazer and sunglasses that he took off when he saw the sad mess around the couch. His face loosened in alarm. "Well, shit."

Natasha couldn't quite make heads or tails of this, her mouth hanging unabashedly open, her mind too overwhelmed and muddled to comprehend what was happening. Surely she was dreaming. Surely this was something her battered brain had come up with to ease the pain of her failure. Hill reached down and laid a hand on Steve's arm, wincing at all the blood. She looked back at Stark. "Get the doctors over here."

Stark shook his head. He looked pale and worried and troubled. "Christ, Rogers, can't ever do anything halfway, can you? You guys get your asses in here! Just sit tight."

Men with bags and medical equipment and a stretcher poured into the room, pushing their way to the foldout couch, scrambling to help. Hands covered in latex reached for Steve, trying to assess the situation and take vitals and pull him from Natasha's arms. "Pulse is weak. BP is low. He's severely dehydrated."

"Let's get a line in him. Hurry."

"Looks like a through-and-through in the right shoulder. Significant blood loss. Shock?"

"Captain Rogers, can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?"

"Call ahead to Johns Hopkins."

"Natasha," Sam said. His low, calm voice cut through the noise buzzing around her aching head. His eyes were worried but calm and caring. "Let him go. Let them take him."

The medics couldn't get close enough to treat Steve, watching her expectantly. She looked down, not having realizing she was holding Steve tighter than she had ever held anything or anyone else. Her arm was around him, holding his hand over his bandaged stomach. Her other was keeping his head pressed to her chest, covering his eyes as though to shield him. It was so hard to take her hands away. To let them in. It was so hard to trust. Everything was so raw, and nothing seemed quite real, and this went against every desperate thought to which she had clung since she'd walked into Steve's hospital room last night. The most important of missions that she'd assigned herself. _Protect him. Keep him safe. Don't let him go._

Dazed and dizzy, she looked back up at Sam but found him the same as he had been before all of this had happened. Strong and sure. He laid her hand over where she held Steve's. "Let him go. It's okay now. I promise."

Everybody was watching her. Waiting for her. She looked down at Steve again, at his flushed face where it was tucked to her chest. He was calm. There was no sign of pain, no distress or fear, and he breathed easily. He would be alright. He would be.

So she let him go.

The medical team swarmed the bed as she let Sam help her up. They were shouting orders for this medication or that, relaying vitals to each other, working rapidly to stabilize Steve. She watched wearily, leaning into Sam despite herself, as they pulled away the rumpled and bloody blankets and cut off the soiled bandages and started applying new ones. Her eyes never left Steve; the urge to go back to his side was damn near unbearable. But she didn't. The medics got him onto the stretcher, and then they rushed him away from her.

Natasha released a quivering breath and looked down. She couldn't stop shaking. Sam's hand found hers and squeezed tight. She didn't even mind.

Stark came closer, his face pale and his eyes steeped in worry. "What the hell happened?" he asked. The question was directed at her. It was angry and alarmed and worried but not accusatory. He wasn't blaming her. Nobody was. Still, she couldn't help but feel guilty all over again. "I saw the battle. It's all over the world. They came to finish him off?"

"They tried," Sam answered.

Tony looked furious, but his expression softened into one of grim determination. He glanced at Hill. "Well, if they try again, they will regret it. I'll make goddamn sure of it." If the number of soldiers bearing Stark Industries security logos on their uniforms was any indication, Tony would make good on that threat. Natasha had never been quite so glad and relieved to see him. He stared at her; if he saw the way her hands were trembling or the tears that were blurring her vision, he didn't call her out on it. She was grateful for that. Grateful for Tony Stark showing up like the goddamn cavalry to rescue them. So _grateful_.

"You two look rough," Tony said. "You want the doctors to look at you? I brought a few extras." He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at a whole second medical team waiting idly down the hall.

Sam laughed softly and shook his head. "No, I'm alright. Sam Wilson, by the way."

Stark nodded, shaking Sam's hand firmly. "Rogers' new sidekick. Impressive show. Gotta say that your wings looked familiar."

"They should. You designed them."

"I might have had a hand in it. I have great respect for people who like using my tech to fly and kick some serious ass. Where did you get a hold of one…"

Natasha lost track of their conversation and drifted, her weary eyes looking back at the foldout couch where the sun now shone so brightly. All of the terrors were blasted away. And all that remained was the ghost of the woman she'd been. "Natasha?" She forced herself to pay attention and turned to regard Tony with eyes that wouldn't focus right. He was concerned, well and truly, for a friend. For her. "You okay?"

She didn't know, but she thought she would be. "Yeah." She looked from Tony to Maria to Sam. Sam gave her a small nod, the corner of his mouth turned in a knowing smile. She'd finally stopped shaking. "Yeah. I'll be fine."

* * *

The hospital was quiet. The afternoon was peaceful, filled with soft and pleasant chatter, with the warm sense of safety, with rest and recovery. A serene evening was ready to arrive, and the world was ready to receive it. For now, at least, danger seemed very far away. It wasn't gone; if they had learned anything from the last difficult days, it was impossible to eradicate evil completely. But it was distant, a remote threat they could fight another time. This night they could sleep, free and unburdened.

Natasha silently walked down the gleaming hallway. Outside Steve's room there was a slew of armed guards standing watch. The sight was a little off-putting at first, but these were Stark's men. She trusted that Tony trusted them. Tony himself was standing near the door to the room, speaking in hushed tones to Hill. They had been conspiratorially talking with one another for most of the afternoon. Natasha didn't know what they were doing, but it was encouraging that without SHIELD the Avengers still stood together. Hill had never cared for the Avengers Initiative, but seeing her working with Stark suggested she would be regrouping and changing her opinions about the nature of world security. Maybe the hulking mass of SHIELD had ended up being too exposed, too vast and easy to infiltrate, too buried in its own size, bureaucracy, and rhetoric. Maybe Fury had been right: what the world truly needed were heroes who fought their hardest and never gave up and gladly sacrificed themselves to see people safe. As long as those heroes were willing to fight, there was hope.

Tony spotted her approach, lifting his chin and smiling that cheeky grin that she found so obnoxious. Today it didn't bother her so much. Hill stopped their conversation mid-sentence, turning and regarding her evenly. Her arms were folded across her chest. "How's the arm?" she asked.

Natasha shrugged slightly. "I've had much worse."

Hill nodded, needing no further explanation. "So you're in the wind, huh," Tony said. "No more SHIELD. That's gotta be upsetting after slaving away for all these years."

She appraised him coolly. "Not as much as you'd think."

Stark winced. "But then again, finding out you've actually been carrying the torch for your enemy would probably redefine the concept of 'upsetting'." It did, but she'd get over it. Things healed, after all. Stark cocked an eyebrow. "So what now, ex-Agent Romanoff? Fury's dead. All your secrets are exposed. Where do you go from here?"

She wondered at what he was getting at, if he really cared or if he was trying to manipulate her into doing something he wanted. Stark had good intentions, even if he was a self-absorbed ass. And he always did the right thing in the end. But she didn't have an answer, so honesty seemed to be the only option. She was too tired to lie. "I don't know."

Stark kept smiling. He was so damn proud of himself and not at all adverse to showing it. "Well, when you figure it out, give me a call. I've got plenty of uses for someone of your, uh, skillset around my office. Seems like there's a _huge_, helicarrier-sized crater in the world of international security. Privatization seems like a fantastic idea right now, don't you think?"

She hid her surprise. "You offering me a job, Stark?" The thought wasn't entirely unappealing.

Tony was a little embarrassed. "Maybe. There's a place for you if you wanna come work for Stark Industries for real this time. Though, when I really think about, thanks to you your last employers just saw their multibillion dollar plan for the future crash and burn into the Potomac."

She regarded him evenly for a moment. But she knew almost immediately that it wasn't right for her. At least not now. She was free. For the first time since her childhood, nobody owned her. Nobody controlled her. She wanted to see what that felt like. "Thanks for the thought, but I'll pass for now."

He was disappointed but not hurt or angry. "If you change your mind, you know where to find me."

She nodded to him and to Hill before stepping inside Steve's room. Sam was sitting beside Steve's bed but at her entrance he hastily got to his feet. "I was figuring you were going to come down," he said.

Her eyes fell to Steve. He already looked worlds better. He was flushed and sweaty with a broken fever, perspiration setting his face aglow. There was healthy color to his cheeks. His wounds had all been redressed in clean bandages. He was sleeping contentedly. An IV pole stood near the bed delivering fluids and blood and morphine and antibiotics. "Doc says with the transfusion he'll be as good as new in a couple of days. Already things are healing."

Her relief was so damn strong that it was all she could do to school her face and keep her voice level. "Good."

Sam watched her as she watched Steve. After an awkward beat, he smiled and bowed his head and moved away from the bed. "I, uh…" He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. "I just wanted to say you were right. I should have trusted you." Natasha turned to look at him. He was still worn and tired, but his eyes were bright. And the sincerity in his voice was unwavering. "So I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I didn't know it was going to be okay. I took a chance. A really big one."

"You had faith in him," Sam answered. "I'm thinking that goes with the territory."

"Of what?"

"Of being his friend." Sam smiled. It was real and warm, filled with a fledgling sense of companionship and hope. She felt grateful again, grateful that Steve had found this man. Grateful that he wouldn't face the dark and dangerous road ahead of him alone. "Well, I'm gonna get some shut-eye. You got this, right?"

She didn't know if he was purposefully echoing the last tense conversation they'd shared before this had all gone to hell. She didn't care. It seemed appropriate somehow. "Yes."

"Good." Sam left.

Natasha stood at the foot of the bed a moment more, basking in a fuzzy feeling of exhaustion and a novel sense of euphoria, before taking her place at Steve's side. She sunk into the chair slowly and then stared at his face once more. Handsome. Calm. His hand lay atop the blankets of the hospital bed, but she didn't dare touch it. Memories of the night before, of her battered soul straining against the thought of losing him, prodded at the edge of her consciousness. She didn't want to let those thoughts in again. They were too powerful, too frightening, and she didn't need them now. He wasn't dying. She didn't need to protect him any longer. It didn't feel _right_ to touch him now. He wasn't hers to touch. _He wasn't hers._

But her heart was aching and tender. It was loose of its cage, loose and wild and driving her in ways it never had before. Still, she didn't want it to stop and shrivel back into the shadows. So she carefully laid her hand atop his. And when he didn't wake or pull away, she folded their fingers together and starting sweeping her thumb over his knuckles over and over again in a mindless pattern. His hand fit hers. She smiled to herself at that, thinking back to the first time she'd noticed it the night before. It felt like a lifetime ago. Some things hadn't changed, but other things… She couldn't pretend to be who she had been anymore.

"Nat?"

She looked up and saw Steve watching her. He blinked tiredly, slowly gathering his bearings. Quickly she let go of him, ashamed anew for having been caught. Wondering at how much he knew of what had happened. She hoped for none of it and all of it at the same time. She managed to compose herself, leaning back slightly in her chair. "How are you feeling?"

He closed his eyes for a moment with half a wince. "Pretty horrible," he confessed. "But I'm not dead."

"No. Stark wanted me to tell you that you owe him, by the way."

He chuckled at that. "Yeah," he agreed. His gaze gained a sharper glint. "Not as much as I owe you, though."

She didn't know what to say to that. She wanted to dismiss it outright. He didn't owe her anything. "What do you remember?"

He pushed himself up with a grimace, but he got his leaden body upright. She inclined his hospital bed for him and propped the pillows behind his back for support before sitting back in the chair. "Enough," he murmured. She bowed her head and averted her eyes, terrified of that simple statement. Even with the best of intentions driving her, what she had done during the long night felt unforgivable. He would remember her lie and hate her for it. But when she finally summoned forth the bravery to actually _look_ at his face, she saw that his eyes were bright and clear. "I remember enough to know that you saved my life."

She shook her head. "You did the same for me," she said.

"No," he returned. He reached for her hand and grabbed it tightly and squeezed. "I didn't." She watched, unsure and frightened of what she was feeling, of what she wanted, as his strong fingers slid over hers and wove in between them. "Thank you."

His voice was so earnest, so appreciative, that whatever doubts she'd had about what she'd done all but disappeared. There was warmth, warmth that melted away the chill her guilt had driven into her heart. She smiled. No lies or false pretenses. A true smile. "You're welcome."

Now he caressed her knuckles with his thumb. The touch was simple and soothing, and they sat for some time in silence. There were things she wanted to say to him. She wanted to confess what she'd done and who she'd pretended to be. She wanted to speak all the truths she'd promised him as he'd lain in her arms. They prodded at her lips but she held them back. It didn't matter who she had been. He'd known none of it before, but he'd still wanted her as his friend. As someone who cared about him. The lies of her past couldn't shape her future.

"Would you stay with me?" he asked. He looked sleepy and a little afraid and really sheepish. "Just for a while."

She stood and brought her other hand to his cheek and pressed a tender kiss to his forehead. She lingered, basking in the sensation of his skin beneath her fingertips and lips, treasuring the feel of him, cherishing the one moment he'd unknowingly given her. "I'll stay."

His lips pulled into a smile and his eyes drifted shut.

She held his hand and watched him sleep. SHIELD was gone. Everything was different. She'd been stripped bare. She'd been reduced to the lowest common denominator, but somehow it didn't bother her so much anymore. Underneath everything she had been she'd found someone who was strong enough and smart enough and brave enough to protect the man who'd protected her. Steve had trusted her to save him, and she had. That was enough. She wanted to build a new life, and this was a good place to start.

"_I blew all my covers. I gotta go figure out a new one."  
_"_That might take a while."  
_"_I'm counting on it."_

**THE END**

* * *

Well, thanks for reading! This was supposed to just be a quick "Natasha-visits-Steve-in-the-hospital" hurt/comfort thing, but it kinda ran away from me :-). Injuring Steve always does - what can I say? Anyway, thanks, as always, for all your wonderful reviews and alerts! You guys are the best.

After this, I'll be focusing on "Red Rain" (for those of you who want more serious Steve/Natasha goodness, check it out). See you next time!


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